Team Mentorship Initiative results in students, mentors working together for positive community change
A comment from one student who participated in “See Yourself in STEM – Team Mentorship,” a team mentorship program operated by the MetroWest STEM Education Network, is only a few words, but it spoke volumes:
“See Yourself in STEM made me think about things I never thought of before.”
The mentorship program where teams of students from several Massachusetts high schools work with mentors on open-ended STEM projects is entering its second year and has already collected strong reviews from students and mentors.
Throughout the year-long program, students and mentors work to create a positive solution for environmental problems that affect the community.
Using NASA resources, including the Globe Observer App and basic STEM skills, students use evidence-based arguments to promote actual changes that could affect the well-being of the community.
One team, for instance, developed the idea for an APP where people, using geo-tracking, could flag high areas of trash that they see in the city. The idea would be that people who spot the trash would then clean it up themselves or prompt others to visit that area to clean.
The APP would then be updated once the area had been cleaned.
The team suggested that there could be prizes and various incentives for people to make use of the APP and play a role in cleaning up their community.
In a video that the students developed to describe their idea and vision, they said that no change will come unless community members are willing to work together.
Now in its third year, the program has been renamed “Perspectives of Earth Team Mentorship (PETM)
Learn more about this exciting project here.
