Inspiring Future STEM Leaders While Modeling Diversity, Inclusion

Students from Kern County’s Migrant Education Program (MEP) are seeing themselves represented in STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics) fields and getting the unique opportunity to engage in hands-on STEM lessons. Migrant students participated in a free STEM Institute this summer at UC Santa Barbara. Over the two-week course, students learned about building and coding robotics, working with circuit boards, programming remote control cars, launching rockets, and much more.

Salvador Avalos, the Migrant Education Coordinator at Kern County Superintendent of Schools, says one of the main goals is to promote diversity in STEM.

“The idea is to encourage more of our population to go into STEM fields. There’s a huge need for more minorities, and particularly more women, in STEM,” he said.

The program began as an introduction to STEM in 2015. Since then, it has evolved to include hands-on interactive lessons, and workshops with STEM professionals, many of whom are former students of Kern County.

“We’re starting to see a lot of our previous students come back and be the speakers now,” Avalos said.

Program Lead Paola Caballero participated in the institute as a high school student. Now, she’s helping to lead the camp. She reflected on the impact of her own experience and the joy of giving back, including a full-circle moment of seeing former students return as speakers, inspiring the next generation with their journeys of success.

“For me to plan the activities, get the speakers for them, and connect all the dots together is a really great feeling for myself,” Caballero said. “To be able to give it back my same experience to them but even better, really means a lot to me.”

The institute is entirely free for migrant students, thanks to partnerships with organizations like Youth to Leaders and Lockheed Martin. By having professionals from similar backgrounds as the students, the kids can connect with and be inspired by people who look like them. Avalos says that representation is very important.

“I think it’s vital that we get more and more people of color into this field because relatively it’s still very, very low,” he said.

Caballero agrees, saying that vital representation is what allows students to connect to the STEM material that they’re learning, and the success of the program builds on itself.

“It just makes them even more motivational for the students because they’re coming from the same background, the same stories, and it’s all connecting together,” she said.

Maria Fernanda Moreno, an upcoming senior at Bakersfield High School, expressed her newfound passion for STEM and engineering, which she discovered through the camp. She highlighted the leadership and teamwork skills she developed, and how the experience encouraged her to pursue a college education in STEM.

“I never thought I would be able to do STEM, or build something, code something,” she said. “It absolutely changed my mind into pursuing engineering now.”

Andres Medina, a McFarland High School senior, says the STEM institute opened his eyes to the diverse career paths he could explore in the future. He also appreciates the exposure to universities that go beyond his hometown.

“Exploring a new campus in a different area, it’s been really enjoyable for me,” he said. “It definitely motivated me to keep exploring different universities because as an incoming senior I have to start applying.”

The camp’s activities, such as coding, rocket launch competitions, and interactive sessions with professionals, helped to broaden students’ understanding of what STEM is, and to plant the seeds of interest in pursuing STEM fields. By providing these transformative experiences, the program strives to build a more diverse and inclusive future in STEM. Looking forward, program leaders hope this annual STEM institute only grows stronger.

“My end goal is just to help our overall community, and it starts with our population. It starts with being diverse,” Caballero said.