Mac program for Black youth aims to make STEM ‘culturally relevant’
DIY hair oil, physics of football among workshops geared to engage under-represented students
Hundreds of students learned the science behind hair textures, physics of throwing a football and structural integrity required to withstand a hair dryer-powered wind test in the inaugural year of a McMaster University program designed to introduce Black youth to STEM.
Organizer Jodi-Anne Buckley says Black Outreach STEM Series (BOSS) is gearing up for its second session starting this spring, one they anticipate will again bring “really, really high demand.”
The program was designed to make STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) “culturally relevant” to Black students, who are under-represented in these fields, including in university, said Buckley, who is a Black student recruitment and career adviser with the department.
BOSS workshops teach chemistry through creating hair oil, which students then take home, physics through sports, civil engineering through designing a structure, among other skills.
Some students, Buckley said, arrived unable to describe an engineer’s job, and left with the confidence to experiment with designs on their own.
“You see their minds light up because now they get it,” she said. “And the ones who already have interest in building things, they start to build those connections to what they like to do.”
In 2023, 1,053 high school students from nine Ontario boards and a total of 2,136 Black youth overall participated in the program, which launched last spring with one or two sessions a week. When students are in class, youth come as a school group to campus to participate in a workshop and take a tour of campus. In the summer months, programs are geared toward camps and community groups.
Some high school students from last year’s program have applied to McMaster’s engineering department, one of outreach’s goals, Buckley said.
Buckley said they’ve already started offering workshop dates to schools, starting with those who were wait-listed last year.
The program is part of McMaster Engineering Community Outreach, which includes programs for girls, and Indigenous and 2SLGBTQ+ youth.
The outreach team has hired current McMaster students, like Efosa Imasekha, a third-year engineering physics student from Nigeria, to design and lead workshops.
Currently, Imasekha, who is also vice-president of McMaster’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, is developing workshops that teach rocketry and building a solar panel-powered tiny car, which are among those set to be launched in May.
“I basically start with a concept I’d like to teach,” he said.
For example, the physics of projectile motion will be taught by demonstrating rocket launch, something Imasekha knew would engage students.
“The idea is to show them how to use kinematics equations to solve for something like the range of a rocket or how high it goes and guess a landing position,” he said.
Physics, a “problem area” for many students, is one of this year’s focuses for BOSS, which is launching several new workshops, including one on coding and food insecurity.
The model empowers university student leaders and gives their younger peers an opportunity to see themselves represented in the STEM field.
“That really changes the experience for the students because they have someone who’s an expert and is passionate about that workshop,” she said.
To book a workshop or learn more about BOSS, teachers, organization leaders and families can email: bosseng@mcmaster.ca.