Over the course of the past school year I had the opportunity through the non profit, MakerGirl, to plan a 7 week long raod trip across the east coast of the US to bring STEM Education to rural communities and low income families. MakerGirl functions on school campuses like Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan, Cambridge, UT, and San Francisco during the school year to bring STEM education to the commuities around them. Through the work of college students who volunteer their time, Makergirl curriculum aims to show girls they can be their full selves while being interested in STEM and science. Most of the girls that attend these sessions either have parents that work for the university, or have some affiliation to them. Sometimes, Girl Scouts will get involved as well. These sessions are all meant to fundraise the big summer innitiative to bring 3D printers and curriculum to rural, low resource areas across the country and educate girls for free. 

For this particular trip, we partnered with big organizations as well as schools and museums in order to bring the best experience possible to the girls. I got to personally teach 600 girls, 80% of which were enrolled in free and reduced lunch programs. 

However, that is not my point in this update. Throughout this project, what really intrigued me was if this one-time "STEM Intervention" actually made an impact on a students' life. Would they forget about it after a week? Would they be engaged enough to ask for more? Would this ceate an issue because there weren't resources to continue the access? What resources could I provide parents in case the child was interested? How can I ensure students who don't have access to the internet at home can pursue thier interest?

Do intervention programs work to inspire long term learning? If so, how long should these programs be? How many follow up activities are needed to sustain an initial interest? And is there a way to track whether these programs are helping a student at all?

With this interest in mind, I have decided to embark on a small study in order to measure how many times a student displays thier 3D design to their parents/grandparents/family members. If they talk about it a week after the session, 2 weeks even. Do they ask for more resources? Do they display their 3D print in their room? Measuring if our program design is actually making a difference, and if not, how can we pivot our ideas to do so. 

I'm excited to embark on this study, mostly because I think it's important for organiztions to hold themselves accountable for making change. If a not for profit sets out to help students, shouldn't they make sure they are doing just that?