Community Health Academy of the Heights
New York City, NY
In December 2016, I was invited by Ms. Morgan Clark and Mr. Justin Grimm-Greenblatt to speak to their Science and Environment classes at the Community Health Academy of the Heights, in New York City. The day was dedicated to teaching high schoolers, predominantly from Hispanic backgrounds, about the contributions of Latinos, Latinas, and Latinx individuals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. I spoke to several classes, including the Advance Placement Environmental Science Class, a 9th Grade General Biology Class, a 9th Grade English Language Learners Biology Class, and a 9th Grade Individualized Education Plans Biology Class (special needs). The goal was to inspire interest in STEM among in underrepresented groups.
Before sharing my experience as a woman in STEM and as a Latin-American scientist, I asked Ms. Clark and Mr. Grimm-Greenblatt to have the students write down their own definition of a scientist. We created a word cloud from their responses, and the results were very interesting. In the initial word cloud, terms like old, white, lab coat, and chemicals were prominently featured. After my talk, we conducted the exercise again, and the resulting word cloud shows significant changes. The new terms included person, anything, different , and normal, reflecting a shift in how the students defined a scientist.
Left image: students' initial thoughts on “what a scientist is” before the talk. Right image: a word cloud featuring the words that came to students' minds after listening to my talk about my experiences and academic journey.
For many of these students, the lack of representation of Latin-Americans in their field of interest becomes a major barrier to pursuing their goals. Realizing that someone from a similar background has overcome challenges can significantly alter their expectations of what they can achieve.
A heartfelt thank you to Ms. Morgan Clark and Mr. Justin Grimm-Greenblatt, and of course, the incredible students who welcomed me into their classroom. I walked away having learned so much from this experience—probably more than the students did!
