COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Over the weekend, volunteers and community members from College Station and Texas A&M came together to host the first girls in STEM event at the Lincoln Recreation Center.
The event was created to increase the youth’s interest in STEM as well as support diversity efforts in the field.
Dr. Myckieala Cooper, a volunteer for the event, is currently on track to pursue her master’s at Texas A&M in biotechnology. She has a Doctor of Pharmacy degree but wants to explore other avenues within STEM.
“I got involved in this event through the Black Graduate Student Association, so I was just really excited about the opportunity to be able to help inspire young girls to pursue careers in STEM,” Cooper said.
Part of her studies, she will learn how to apply science data from space and how it affects us here on Earth.
“As I pursue my career with NASA at this point in time and thinking about the different forces and science related concepts between earth and space and just trying to figure out how to bring some of that space knowledge back to earth,” Cooper said.
Cooper says the girls were engaged, making connections to what they are learning in school.
“We got to talk about what would help with the egg drop, but then we also had a debrief as well so that really allowed us to build that connection with them so some of them are actually building bridges in their classes so they were like ‘excuse me, I have a question about that,’ and I was like, ‘yeah let’s talk about it,” Cooper said.
Science-related concepts is one of the fields that was of interest to the girls.
They participated in activities such as an egg drop challenge, popsicle stick catapult, gardening, and 3D printing.
“I love science and when I grow up, I want to be a scientist,” said girls in STEM attendees.
“I can learn more scientific stuff and get smarter.”
“Because I want to be an anesthesiologist and they’re going to show medical stuff and new experiences.”
For Cooper, it’s about inspiring the next generation of stem leaders to come.
“Just being able to be a support for them and a resource to show them how it is to be mentored and reach out and talk and engage and find those questions that we have,” Cooper said.
Along the way, she says there are areas that need addressing such as the lack of diversity in STEM.
“So many disparities just in science whether you’re talking about in the classroom in teaching women especially to lean in to make sure they have an active presence and that they’re actively engaged especially in male dominated areas and things like that,” Cooper said.
Cooper is looking to dive deeper in the health disparities that women in STEM also face.
“As far as like women astronauts and how they don’t get as much flight time because of the space radiation risk so just trying to figure out going forward how do we solve that to make sure that we are mitigating them getting cancer and things like that so that we will see more of us going up into space,” Cooper said.
With the success of Saturday’s event, the goal is to host the Girls in STEM Expo annually.