Building Confidence and Connection through Culturally-Rich STEM Experiences

Academic Mentor | Lara Hebert
Community Partner | Driven to Reach Excellence & Academic Achievement for Males (DREAAM)

Project Description
DREAAM has a mission to reach, teach, and empower Black boys and young men to become life-long learners, leaders, and agents of change for themselves, their families, and their communities. Activities include Saturday School, after-school programs, and opportunities to explore college and career options. Too often, Black boys and girls losing interest and confidence in mathematics and science at an early age, putting them at a disadvantage for competitiveness and adaptability to high-tech, innovative environments and careers. This CAS partnership aims to narrow this opportunity gap by focusing on cultural pride and empowerment through STEM.

In this project, a Community-Academic Scholar will work with DREAAM’s Assistant Director of Programs and Services in Rantoul, and staff from the Center for Family and Community Engaged STEAMM to plan and implement a series of culturally-rich STEM experiences for students in grades 3-5 to dive deeper into the importance of science, engineering, and mathematics to solve global and local challenges. These activities will be implemented with DREAAM students during the summer and the CAS team will study the impact of these activities on STEM interest, identity, and self-efficacy using observations, surveys, and focus group interviews. The activities developed through this CAS initiative will build upon the foundation of DREAAM’s cultural pride curriculum used in the Saturday School program.

Role of the Community-Academic Scholar

The scholar will:

• Complete protection of minors training at the start of the program and register with DREAAM as an Intern 
• Attend the April IMAGINE Family STEM Night event and the April or May Saturday School session
• Meet families and staff from DREAAM and experience both the cultural pride curriculum and STEM experiences that this project will build upon
• Use current literature about STEM identity development and self-efficacy in elementary-aged students to inform the development of the survey and focus group protocols
• Work closely with the mentor and DREAAM staff to develop 6 culturally-rich STEM experiences for students in grades 3-5
• Observe the facilitation of these activities, administer pre- and post-surveys, and conduct focus group interviews.
• Assist with analysis to assess impact and opportunities for improvement
• By contributing to DREAAM’s curriculum development and assessment, the scholar will help to increase the likelihood of DREAAM students seeing themselves in future STEM majors and careers.

DREAAM staff will work closely with the scholar and project mentor to schedule opportunities to engage with DREAAM participants and their families throughout the project. The scholar will have several experiences during the DREAAM Summer STEM Program to develop a working relationship with DREAAM staff and also to participate in summer programming to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of the curriculum. DREAAM leadership will assist in mentoring the scholar, developing focus group questions, and providing support to complete the project activities.