A Day at our Chicas STEM Summer Camp

Latina women are severely under-represented in the fields of STEM.

In the U.S., only 12% of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees are awarded to minority women.

We want to change that. Our future needs Latina leaders in all fields, including STEM.

Nine years ago we began our Chicas STEM summer camp with the goal of introducing more Latina girls to STEM. Our week-long STEM camp is full of fun, hands-on, culturally-responsive STEM programming for girls grades 3 through 12.

And guess what? It’s working.

42% of graduated Chicas students in 2017 are now pursuing a STEM field career.

So what does a day at our Chicas STEM camp look like?

The girls are divided into groups based on age and they rotate workshops throughout the day. Our friends at Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center facilitated a session called ‘Our Bodies are Science!’, where the girls learned about CPR, body vitals, and more.

Our Bodies Are Science!:

Meanwhile, our friends at Comcast facilitated an engineering challenge where the girls worked in teams to build the tallest tower out of spaghetti, tape, string, and one marshmallow.

Engineering Challenge:

Thanks to the amazing generosity of Comcast, the day ended with an extra special surprise.

Comcast raffles off five laptops to five lucky Chicas!

A new laptop can be life-changing for the girls in our Chicas Program.

Also thanks to Comcast, the day ended with snow cones from Kona Ice for all of the girls.

Snow cones for everyone!

We see future leaders, engineers, doctors, nurses, scientists, and so much more in these girls. The sky is the limit, Chicas. Dream big and continue shattering those glass ceilings!

Special thanks to all of our community partners who help make our Chicas STEM camp possible.

If you’d like to support our Chicas STEM camp, you can give a high impact gift here.