Scientists Can Look Like Them – What Sending Science Majors Into Elementary Schools Helps Latino And Black Students Realize
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
A student’s drawings of a scientist upon starting and after completing the Young Scientists Program. USC Young Scientists Program, CC BY-NC-ND
The big idea
After taking part in hands-on STEM lab experiments as part of a youth science program I coordinate, Latino and Black students were more likely to picture scientists as people who look like them – and not stereotypical white men in lab coats.
The Young Scientists Program at the Joint Educational Project of the University of Southern California offers specialized science, technology, engineering and math instruction in local elementary schools that have mostly Latino and Black students – two groups long underrepresented in STEM fields. My colleagues and I recruit underg...
