Yesterday I unveiled our new Robotics Club shirt design on social media and thanked the people who have donated money to make this design a reality. I was so happy to receive donations from several more people yesterday, including a former student and a complete stranger!

While I am working on raising the money and getting the shirts made, our teams are busy prepping for the competition. I love seeing them figure out challenges and smile when the robots move the way they intended.

I also want to mention that many other great things are happening on campus this week. Our theatre classes, led by Ms. Heath,  are working in the Makerspace to create newscasts with the green screen wall. Mr. Daniel Sanchez is prepping to start our mixed gender Vex Robotics Club that will meet in the morning. And, all of our students are having their vision checked by Vision to Learn because our students need to be taken care of to do the amazing things they are accomplishing!

Here We Go!

1 team to 2 teams to 3 teams!

Our All Girls Robotics club is off and running! When we started last year, as the All Girls STEAM Club, we had about 40 girls who participated during second semester. Our teacher mentors, Ms. Natalie Prystaloski and Mr. Victor Sanchez, have worked hard to make the program even stronger this year. As a result, the girls were able to sign-up and start practice with the LEGO Mindstorm robots this past week.

A lot of work has been done in the robotics lab and the girls are working on their t-shirt design for the competitions. The first competition is October 27, 2018.

One of the challenges we have faced this year is the amount of girls who are excited for this opportunity. Over 80 of our girls want to be a robotics coder and we love that! We are working out schedules for them all to participate.

As we start organizing the girls for competition teams we have increased from one team to two teams and are now considering adding a third team!

Keep checking back for updates as we continue on our exciting journey!

Not just STEAM Girls, Entrepreneur STEAM Girls!

Over the weekend, I read the book “Venture Girls” by Cristal Glangchai, PhD. Glangchai is who I want to be when I grow up. She has found a way to get girls interested in STEAM but she takes it a step further.

I have spent the last two years working to expose my female students to STEAM activities in the hopes that it will stick to some of them, and they will pursue careers in the male-dominated professions of math and engineering. Glangchai points out that hoping it sticks is not the best way to go about this. She writes about taking girls' interest in science, math, and engineering and turning them into entrepreneurs. 

Her organization, Venture Labs, takes girls as young as five and helps them to create business plans and products that solve real world problems that they see. The book gives so many examples of how girls have so much to contribute to society but are constantly being told they are not good enough. Teaching them to be entrepreneurs gives them the option to make a way for themselves instead of waiting for the world to catch up. Here's to something new for the next two years...

Already Hitting our Stride

Mr. Sanchez, one of the STEAM coaches & me!

It's hard to believe that the 2018 - 2019 school year started four weeks ago already. I recently heard a quote, "The days are long, but the years are short". And I find this to be truer and truer as as each school year comes to a close and another one opens. At Burroughs we have started the school year off strong. There's an excitement and a sense of positivity in the air that I haven't experienced in a few years.

When our All-Girls STEAM Club kicked off in January we didn't really know what we were doing. It took a while to reach our stride. This year we are starting right away. Our two faculty sponsors, Ms. Prystaloski and Mr. Sanchez have already got over 70 girls signed up. Honestly it is more than we planned for but we are working on a plan. I do not intend to turn away any girl who wants to be part of the group. We are changing the name to the All-Girls Robotics Club, it embodies what they are doing better and we are excited for the change!

This year we will have competition teams. The girls will compete in the Lego First Challenge in November. I am hoping that the exposure to building the robots, coding them, and participating in a competition will boost the confidence of the girls and allow them to shine in ways that are new.

Additionally, our professional development for teachers has kicked off strong this year. This week we are introducing Rocket Notebooks to the staff, if you don't know what these are, Google them, you will want one too!