My Story
Numerous young girls are on the very edge of their seat, their hands stretched with eagerness to respond to the question that I just asked. I pick a girl named Ali and she almost flew out of her chair. “DNA is the thing that codes for genes in our body!” exclaimed Ali.
“You are absolutely correct!” I said, smiling at the look of reassurance on her face. After the workshop, Ali came up to me and said how we have inspired her to try her own experiments and how she wants to become a scientist one day. Sharing an experience like this with girls like Ali is irreplaceable, and fuels my passion for this issue. Many women are discouraged from entering the STEM workforce due to constricting stereotypes. From toys that are targeted at boys to representations of STEM professionals in the media, women are led to believe that there’s no place for them in this field, and I strive to reverse this issue by showing girls like Ali that they can succeed in STEM.
Through my own projects, whether it be through engineering Food Computers and Vertical Gardens with low-income students, or empowering girls such as Ali through my non-profit Girl STEMpowerment, I have furthered my interest in engineering and have recognized the importance of women empowerment in sparking a wide-reaching vessel of creativity in innovation for girls to thrive in STEM, all of which have inspired me to further my work through potentially being an EngineerGirl Ambassador.
My Project
“Food Tech for the Future: Growing Digital Farmers” currently provides low-income students from all over the state are given the opportunity to engineer Food Computers from scratch, in which climate variables such as carbon dioxide, air temperature, humidity, dissolved oxygen, potential hydrogen, electrical conductivity, and root-zone temperature are among the many conditions that can be controlled and monitored within the growing chamber to yield various phenotypic expressions in the plants grown. The growth chamber’s technology is controlled by Raspberry Pi, which is assembled and coded with Python by participating students.
The main goals of the Food Computer program are to engage students and teachers in the first-of-its-kind convergence research that involves engineering technology, ecological systems, and science-based research through food computer education, foster an appreciation for the sciences and inspire further education in these fields, and increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the STEM workforce. From our pilot program in Glendale High School, which is a Title 1 school in Glendale, Arizona, surveys revealed that students were positively impacted by the program and advanced their knowledge in a variety of STEM concepts.
If expanded to impact more low-income females, it is expected for participates to demonstrate similar results as shown in the survey results above, all while empowering them in the field of STEM. Through expanding our impact to females attending low-income middle schools, we can help girls change their mindset about what it is they can do, and who they can be, thus showing them more options in the direction they want to go, whether in STEM or other fields. We want to increase young girls' interest in STEM through hands-on educational experiences which also help them develop creativity, cooperative learning, a critical mind, and strong thinking skills, thus enabling them to discover new ideas and create new options.
With this project, members and volunteers from the organizations Girl STEMpowerment and Arizona Sustainability Alliance are currently building Food Computers and will be taking built Food Computers to Title 1 middle schools in the 2020-2021 school year, which will be structured similarly to the Food Tech Program that AZSA founded. With the intended expansion, members and volunteers will mentor middle school girls throughout the school year about the Food Computers through the use of an engineering-based curriculum that is hands-on and engages critical thinking skills. The middle school students will also get to build their own Food Computers as part of the curriculum. Throughout the year, the middle school students will work to grow to produce in the Food Computers while experimenting with various variables of the computer to see how it affects long-term plant growth.