(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A STEM program designed to help students in African-American and Latino neighborhoods is hoping to expand, to the delight of some of its graduates.
The Chicago Pre-College Science and Engineering Program, for years, has conducted mostly weekend classes in high-tech topics for public school students and their parents.
“You know, the way we look at it is, is that we're preparing young people to take on the rewarding careers of science, technology, and engineering with a mastery of the global language of mathematics. That’s our emphasis,” said Jeffrey Johnson, the Summer Program Coordinator.
And if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, Kenneth Burnett thought the same thing, at first. Then he had fun, and wanted to keep going.
“You know, I was like, oh man, here we go, like the fourth program in the year, you know. And I got there and they were teaching me about programming using a language called Scratch. And, it really just stood out to me,” Burnett said.
“I was having fun and you know, it just made me want to keep going.”
How far has he gone? Kenneth is studying Nuclear Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He credits the ChiS&E program with pointing him there.
Another program alum, Angelese Bunton, is studying to be a pediatrician.
As a young person, she says they taught her and a younger brother to design their own invention – a shovel that spreads salt as you clear snow.
“So not only going through the steps of problem solving and research, I actually got the opportunity to present to a group.”
Jeffrey Johnson, the Summer Program Coordinator, says the ChiS&E program is all about partnerships.
“ChiS&E has partnered with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. That's where Kenneth is now, my alma mater. And as well as laboratories like Argonne National Laboratories, Fermilab, we work with University of Chicago.”
The program hopes to work with more schools, companies and students, making the high-tech fields more diverse.
Efforts to boost STEM Education in Black and brown communities is the subject of our At Issue program this weekend. You can hear more at 9:30 p.m. Sunday.
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