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We are counting down to our Maker Day on April 29th!
We have 11 days to go
Today, meet our Guest Speaker from JPL - Farah Alibay!
Farah Alibay
Space Systems Engineer
Farah Alibay is a Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Prior to working at JPL, she completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Aerospace and Aerothermal Engineering at the University of Cambridge in England, and a PhD in Space Systems Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her primary research focused on spatially and temporally distributed multi-vehicle architectures for planetary exploration. Since joining JPL, she has worked on a number of early mission concepts for both small and larger missions. She was also the Systems Engineer for MarCO, a CubeSat technology demonstration mission that will help support telecommunication relay for the InSight mission during Entry, Descent and Land at Mars. Farah is now the Mission Engineer for the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM), which will capture a 20-tonne boulder from an asteroid and bring it back to lunar orbit using solar electric propulsion. In her spare time, Farah enjoys weightlifting, outdoor activities such as hiking and skiing, and working on home-improvement projects around her house.
We have 11 days to go
Today, meet our Guest Speaker from JPL - Farah Alibay!
Farah Alibay
Space Systems Engineer
Farah Alibay is a Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Prior to working at JPL, she completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Aerospace and Aerothermal Engineering at the University of Cambridge in England, and a PhD in Space Systems Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her primary research focused on spatially and temporally distributed multi-vehicle architectures for planetary exploration. Since joining JPL, she has worked on a number of early mission concepts for both small and larger missions. She was also the Systems Engineer for MarCO, a CubeSat technology demonstration mission that will help support telecommunication relay for the InSight mission during Entry, Descent and Land at Mars. Farah is now the Mission Engineer for the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM), which will capture a 20-tonne boulder from an asteroid and bring it back to lunar orbit using solar electric propulsion. In her spare time, Farah enjoys weightlifting, outdoor activities such as hiking and skiing, and working on home-improvement projects around her house.
Mission Statement: To educate our young women about STEM fields.
Project Need: Across Los Angeles, there are young women who show early aptitude in the STEM fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. However, by the time these young women get into high school and college, many feel that the STEM careers have become closed to them. There is a prevailing myth that women are somehow less talented in math or science, a notion that the statistics of women college graduates in these fields is helping to maintain. Whether this myth is due to a fear of the subjects, stereotype reinforcement whether genuine or perceived, or a lack of real world information about the topic, we are aiming to educate our young women about what's out there and possible for every one of them. The younger the better! We are hoping to strike while the love of science and math is still alive in the youth of our community, before the broken machine can convinve girls that they aren't good at math, or that science and engineering is scary and unattainable.
According to a recent article titled "Bad at maths? Blame your parents!"1 suggested a component of a student's ability in math is their parent's ability in math. Whether the argument is that math skill is inherited or simply a product of the emphasis placed on the subject at home, research clearly shows a correlation between parent and student enthusiasm for STEM subjects. What does this mean for our project? We want to get our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters involved too! This STEM awareness event, initially planned as a 'Mother-Daughter Maker Day,' will show family members that careers in the STEM fields are in fact within reach of their daughters. By involving the family we hope to increase the guidance available to our students as they pursue a possible future in STEM fields. We hope that increasing support and inciting enthusiasm in students while they are very young will help to bridge the gap between females and males within the STEM education impact area.
Our Make Day will include a variety of events, breakout sessions, speakers, and tables for young girls to visit with their relatives. The events are intended to be hands-on, exploratory, and interest-inspiring. We are planning to have the following events on that day:
Session A: Build mini-catapults and test your accuracy
Session B: Participate in an hour of fun online coding on your iPad
Session C: Explore motion by building racecars out of hot glue and pasta (older students)
Session D: Get hands-on with electronics by exploring Microduino
Session E: Build the perfect city with legos - just like the civil engineers do it!
Session F: Build a bridge from wooden popsicle sticks that can withstand maximum weight
Session G: Explore the transfer of energy with dominoes
Session H: Get down and dirty with composting in the LBMS Garden
Presentations will include a keynote speaker from local JPL, a representative from the Highland Park Neighborhood council, a demonstration of middle school and high school level competitive robotics, a Rube Goldberg machine reveal, MESA balsa wood flyer testing, 2 3D printer ongoing demonstrations, and informational tables from local business and the LADWP.
Projected Timeline: Our Mother-Daughter Maker Day is scheduled for March 25th in the Multipurpose room on our Luther Burbank Middle School campus. We have reserved the room, along with the attached classrooms, for breakout sessions that our members will conduct. We anticipate using the months of February and March for advertisement of our event throughout the community, including issuing invitations to each of the local elementary schools, as well as visiting these schools to personally encourage youngsters to sign up and attend with their entire family. We will be attending and speaking at the Highland Park Neighborhood Council on February 2, 2017 to start promoting the event within that organization.
The event is scheduled as a Saturday event to allow for maximum participation by people both within the Luther Burbank community as well as beyond. We will be enlisting the help of speakers and presenters from local organizations whose availability is limited for workweek attendance. While hours haven't yet been established, a conservative estimate of the event times would be from 9:00AM to 12:00PM. The multipurpose room is also booked for setup of the event several days in advance. The setup days will be ideal for videodocumenting the event, as well as run-throughs with each of our team members who will be leading build and explore sessions with our youngest attendees. Several of our members who are not leading sessions on the event day will be assigned camera duty.
Anticipated Outcomes: We hope to have the following short term outcomes: Young students who fill out a short online survey at the end of the event will hopefully indicate an increased willingness and openness to a STEM career. We can measure student interest by providing a pre and post survey via iPad at the event. At the end of the 2016-2017 academic year our 8th grade student members with be moving on to high schools, and many may choose to pursue high schools with STEM focus areas or leadership schools.
Most of our impact will take years to fully measure the outcome. We hope to see an increase in young elementary students who apply for and choose middle and high schools with a STEM focus, including our own school, with it's STEM magnet option. Our community will benefit from this event by establishing our school as a hub of progress for our greatly transitioning neighborhood. We will also see and increase in student interest in the Girls Build LA team in future years at LBMS.
Data Collection: The first measurement of our success with the Mother-Daughter Maker event will be participation. We hope to serve as many young girls and their family members as possible the day of the event. The next measurement will be voluntary surveys via iPad that participants take at the beginning and end of the event. The surveys will ask participants questions about their enjoyment of the activities and their likelihood of coming back to events in the future, as well as how interested they are in STEM careers. We can take the before and after data and hopefully see and increasing trend on our youngest community members toward STEM fields. Should we continue into subsequent years, the incidence of repeat attendees will also be a factor within our data.
Additional data will be collected through our instagram and other social media pages. Additional single question surveys will be posted online for elementary students to take before arriving at the event. The event will also have a videobooth type area for participants to take photos together, with our speakers, with their Maker Day creations, and post to our instagram page. The interest and online presence leading up to, after, and on the event day will be a measurement of how the community is responding.
Budget:
The Jet Propulsion Lab of Nasa is located in Pasadena - very close to our school. JPL provides free speakers with 6-8 weeks of notice, which is within our timeline. We intend to have a keynote speaker attend our Maker Day free of charge.
The following demonstrations at the Maker event will occur free of charge:
LBMS Lego Robotics (Regional Finalists!) robotics presentation
LBMS MESA program presentation
LBMS Rube Goldbears presentation and fun with legos
LADWP informational table
LBMS Compost and Garden Demonstration
The Hour of Code breakout session will use iPads the school already owns to utilize a free online program.
The LBMS Parent center will be present to provide catering services on site, but this cost will be reduced and passed on to attendees.
1 - Maths skills are inherited from your parents. (2016). Mail Online. Retrieved 2 December 2016, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3770631/If-bad-maths-blame-PARENTS-Skills-numbers-inherited.html
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSePrBvNUBxUdCXj775kMT4RdZwnG8uZncRjKR06W6n6GL1UfA/viewform
Project Need: Across Los Angeles, there are young women who show early aptitude in the STEM fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. However, by the time these young women get into high school and college, many feel that the STEM careers have become closed to them. There is a prevailing myth that women are somehow less talented in math or science, a notion that the statistics of women college graduates in these fields is helping to maintain. Whether this myth is due to a fear of the subjects, stereotype reinforcement whether genuine or perceived, or a lack of real world information about the topic, we are aiming to educate our young women about what's out there and possible for every one of them. The younger the better! We are hoping to strike while the love of science and math is still alive in the youth of our community, before the broken machine can convinve girls that they aren't good at math, or that science and engineering is scary and unattainable.
According to a recent article titled "Bad at maths? Blame your parents!"1 suggested a component of a student's ability in math is their parent's ability in math. Whether the argument is that math skill is inherited or simply a product of the emphasis placed on the subject at home, research clearly shows a correlation between parent and student enthusiasm for STEM subjects. What does this mean for our project? We want to get our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters involved too! This STEM awareness event, initially planned as a 'Mother-Daughter Maker Day,' will show family members that careers in the STEM fields are in fact within reach of their daughters. By involving the family we hope to increase the guidance available to our students as they pursue a possible future in STEM fields. We hope that increasing support and inciting enthusiasm in students while they are very young will help to bridge the gap between females and males within the STEM education impact area.
Our Make Day will include a variety of events, breakout sessions, speakers, and tables for young girls to visit with their relatives. The events are intended to be hands-on, exploratory, and interest-inspiring. We are planning to have the following events on that day:
Session A: Build mini-catapults and test your accuracy
Session B: Participate in an hour of fun online coding on your iPad
Session C: Explore motion by building racecars out of hot glue and pasta (older students)
Session D: Get hands-on with electronics by exploring Microduino
Session E: Build the perfect city with legos - just like the civil engineers do it!
Session F: Build a bridge from wooden popsicle sticks that can withstand maximum weight
Session G: Explore the transfer of energy with dominoes
Session H: Get down and dirty with composting in the LBMS Garden
Presentations will include a keynote speaker from local JPL, a representative from the Highland Park Neighborhood council, a demonstration of middle school and high school level competitive robotics, a Rube Goldberg machine reveal, MESA balsa wood flyer testing, 2 3D printer ongoing demonstrations, and informational tables from local business and the LADWP.
Projected Timeline: Our Mother-Daughter Maker Day is scheduled for March 25th in the Multipurpose room on our Luther Burbank Middle School campus. We have reserved the room, along with the attached classrooms, for breakout sessions that our members will conduct. We anticipate using the months of February and March for advertisement of our event throughout the community, including issuing invitations to each of the local elementary schools, as well as visiting these schools to personally encourage youngsters to sign up and attend with their entire family. We will be attending and speaking at the Highland Park Neighborhood Council on February 2, 2017 to start promoting the event within that organization.
The event is scheduled as a Saturday event to allow for maximum participation by people both within the Luther Burbank community as well as beyond. We will be enlisting the help of speakers and presenters from local organizations whose availability is limited for workweek attendance. While hours haven't yet been established, a conservative estimate of the event times would be from 9:00AM to 12:00PM. The multipurpose room is also booked for setup of the event several days in advance. The setup days will be ideal for videodocumenting the event, as well as run-throughs with each of our team members who will be leading build and explore sessions with our youngest attendees. Several of our members who are not leading sessions on the event day will be assigned camera duty.
Anticipated Outcomes: We hope to have the following short term outcomes: Young students who fill out a short online survey at the end of the event will hopefully indicate an increased willingness and openness to a STEM career. We can measure student interest by providing a pre and post survey via iPad at the event. At the end of the 2016-2017 academic year our 8th grade student members with be moving on to high schools, and many may choose to pursue high schools with STEM focus areas or leadership schools.
Most of our impact will take years to fully measure the outcome. We hope to see an increase in young elementary students who apply for and choose middle and high schools with a STEM focus, including our own school, with it's STEM magnet option. Our community will benefit from this event by establishing our school as a hub of progress for our greatly transitioning neighborhood. We will also see and increase in student interest in the Girls Build LA team in future years at LBMS.
Data Collection: The first measurement of our success with the Mother-Daughter Maker event will be participation. We hope to serve as many young girls and their family members as possible the day of the event. The next measurement will be voluntary surveys via iPad that participants take at the beginning and end of the event. The surveys will ask participants questions about their enjoyment of the activities and their likelihood of coming back to events in the future, as well as how interested they are in STEM careers. We can take the before and after data and hopefully see and increasing trend on our youngest community members toward STEM fields. Should we continue into subsequent years, the incidence of repeat attendees will also be a factor within our data.
Additional data will be collected through our instagram and other social media pages. Additional single question surveys will be posted online for elementary students to take before arriving at the event. The event will also have a videobooth type area for participants to take photos together, with our speakers, with their Maker Day creations, and post to our instagram page. The interest and online presence leading up to, after, and on the event day will be a measurement of how the community is responding.
Budget:
The Jet Propulsion Lab of Nasa is located in Pasadena - very close to our school. JPL provides free speakers with 6-8 weeks of notice, which is within our timeline. We intend to have a keynote speaker attend our Maker Day free of charge.
The following demonstrations at the Maker event will occur free of charge:
LBMS Lego Robotics (Regional Finalists!) robotics presentation
LBMS MESA program presentation
LBMS Rube Goldbears presentation and fun with legos
LADWP informational table
LBMS Compost and Garden Demonstration
The Hour of Code breakout session will use iPads the school already owns to utilize a free online program.
The LBMS Parent center will be present to provide catering services on site, but this cost will be reduced and passed on to attendees.
1 - Maths skills are inherited from your parents. (2016). Mail Online. Retrieved 2 December 2016, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3770631/If-bad-maths-blame-PARENTS-Skills-numbers-inherited.html
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSePrBvNUBxUdCXj775kMT4RdZwnG8uZncRjKR06W6n6GL1UfA/viewform
