Youth Engagement through SciXchange (YES) Program - Summer 2019
For the third year in a row, SciXchange ran our very own Harriet Brooks Internship (HBI) and Camp SoSci. These programs were free of cost and applications were open to all highschool students and children between 8-11 within the GTA. This year, both programs were the largest ever in terms of number of participants, reach, and duration.
The Harriet Brooks Internship provided a new group of highschool students with an opportunity to expand their network, increase their exposure to various careers in STEM, and develop their leadership skills. This year we had our greatest reach across the school board’s of the GTA, which resulted in over 100 applicants, making the program the most competitive to date. After a thorough review of the applications, we were incredibly pleased with the 16 bright high school students we had selected for this year’s internship.
Our Camp SoSci campers spent their first week in Camp Eureka, Ryerson’s science, engineering, and sports camp and later spent their second week in Camp SoSci which focuses on science enrichment.
The 16 Harriet Brooks Interns sat together with their leaders, Kausar and Anthony, for a group photo.
HBI - Scientist Spotlights
From working in artificial intelligence at IBM to radiation oncology at Sunnybrook, we had scientists from a diverse range of backgrounds and specialties speak to our interns about their work and career paths. Our goal is to broaden the scope of careers in STEM and what better way to do that then having scientists from different industries speak to our interns. By exposing our interns to members of the scientific field who are otherwise underrepresented, we are able to add to who our interns see as scientists. We want to provide role models that the interns can relate and connect to, role models they hopefully see themselves being one day.
In addition to hearing from scientists, interns had a chance to do hands-on workshops and labs such as developing a video game, creating a chatbot, and using biotechnology in a mock forensic case study. Many interns were surprised by the wide range of potential careers available to them and new interests were ignited.
HBI - Leadership Skills
During the leadership portion of the internship, the interns and coordinators discussed what kind of leaders they wanted to be in their communities and worked on ways to put these goals into action. The interns learned how to navigate through the professional world by developing their skills in communication, public speaking, teamwork, networking, and resilience.
By the end of the program, interns were also prepared to be activity leaders during Camp SoSci. They left the internship with experience and tools in creating, planning, and facilitating youth engagement.
HBI - Activity Development
Interns were tasked with creating interactive, educational, and engaging science activities for the campers of Camp SoSci. The interns thrived in this novel task and blew the coordinators away with the activities they developed and how well they were delivered. The activities included learning about optics while creating kaleidoscopes, extracting DNA from strawberries, and undergoing the crowd-pleasing “elephant toothpaste” chemical reaction. A truly successful moment was hearing some of the campers exclaim that their favourite part of Camp SoSci was the intern-led activities.
Camp SoSci
Camp SoSci boasted programming that touched on several aspects of STEM. The campers completed hands-on activities in biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and robotics in a university laboratory. We also got out of the lab for trips to Allan Gardens Botanical Conservatory, Loblaws PC Cooking School, and Ryerson’s Digital Media Experience Lab (DME). They also received a talk from an engineering PhD candidate about food enrichment and nutrition.
Throughout the week, campers worked on science projects which were then presented at the SoSci Showcase at the end of the week. The campers came up with projects featuring a solar system, bridge, volcano, and robotic arm. Parents and staff came to the event and were impressed by the creations of tomorrow’s scientists.
The Camp SoSci campers proudly displaying their final science projects, including a 3D model fo the solar system (top left), a bridge (top right), a volcano (bottom left), and a robotic arm (bottom right).
Impact
Our third year of running the Harriet Brooks Internship and Camp SoSci was our most impactful yet, having increased the number of school boards reached, amount of participants, diversity of content, and duration of programming. Seeing our interns and campers leave with new perspectives, skills, ideas, and goals inspires us to continue investing in today’s youth.