PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon STEM, a nonprofit that is hoping to change the lives of historically underserved students in rural parts of the state recently received half a million dollars to help girls and students explore possible career opportunities in the sciences.
Both Kobe Edwards and Cassandra Martinez are starting their freshman year at the University of Oregon and both explored potential careers in science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) before they left high school.
Like a standard job, they were paid to learn about STEM and participate in hands-on training and internships. Now more students like them will get the same opportunity thanks to a $500,000 grant awarded to Oregon STEM for its Spark Oregon initiative. It’s a model that uses an “earn-to-learn” approach that connects young people to STEM learning and exposes them to careers in the field.
Catalyze Challenge is the grant program that awarded the money to Oregon STEM. In total it has given over $5 million to "innovative and equitable solutions that are bridging the gap between classrooms and the workforce."
“The fact that they give you money and financial backing for what you're doing is obviously really useful,” said Edwards.
Oregon STEM Executive Director, Deb Mumm-Hill said students get to work with companies in the STEM industry who are committed to diversifying their workforce.
Mumm-Hill said the hope is to build stronger employer pipelines so communities in Oregon can grow. The focus of the program is on historically underserved students and underrepresented populations in STEM fields, Mumm-Hill said.
“Again, those are girls, students of color and those are rural students,” said Mumm-Hill.
The nonprofit works with more than a dozen STEM learning hubs across the state. Ten of them are considered rural. One of the hubs is run by Connected Lane County, a nonprofit serving students in the county's 16 school districts, with 13 of those districts being considered rural, Mumm-Hill said.
“At the end of the day, what we're trying to do is open up doors to something that maybe they hadn't considered for themselves,” said Heidi Larwick the executive director of Connected Lane County.
For students like Martinez and Edwards, it’s been beneficial seeing people who look like them doing work in STEM-related fields.
“Being able to go to a room with people who have like the same poofy hair as me, the same like ethnic background with like biracial parents or whatnot, it was really easy to open up and connect with them,” said Edwards.
“I don't see many people, especially women in this field. So it's really nice to be able to have this opportunity as a high school student to see that, as it is an option, especially for minorities,” Martinez added.
Participation also inspired them to consider different career options. While Martinez is more interested in business, the program allowed her to explore computer science and coding.
“I would have honestly never thought computer science would be something for me. But the internship really opened my eyes on that,” said Martinez.
“[It] really opened my eyes to take architecture, in college, and computer science. So I will be exploring those two and seeing if I want to change my major into those,” she said.
The new grant money will go toward helping more than a hundred students access hands-on STEM learning opportunities.
For more information on how to get involved, interested parents or students can contact the STEM hub in their area.