Final Report: Pathways to Brighter Futures Through STEM Careers

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF),The STEM Pathways project focused on exploring strategies through which at-risk and incarcerated Hispanic youth could be engaged around STEM careers, understand the education, training, and skills they would need to attain them, and think that such a path was a future possibility. To this end, the project and evaluation teams collaborated on a literature review, the development of a logic model, and the design, implementation, and evaluation of a diverse set of program activities that included media, art, and flash mentoring with STEM role models. This work was structured around the following 4 goals: 1) At-risk Hispanic youth will increase their awareness and knowledge about STEM careers and the education, training, and skills needed to attain them. 2) At-risk Hispanic youth will understand that working in a STEM-related job is a possibility for them, currently, and in the future, and will have contacts, information and strategies for further learning in this area. 3) At-risk Hispanic youth will develop self-confidence, and further develop their educational and career goals through interviewing activities with role models and goal/visioning art directives. 4) At-risk youth-produced social media about STEM careers will develop leadership & communication skills among At-risk Hispanic youth. The teams further collaborated to identify specific objectives for each of these goals, some of which applied to all activities (media, art, and flash mentoring) while others applied to just one activity, most often the flash mentoring activity, with which youth had the most time to engage. The project team hoped that if there was evidence of the potential for the project to be impactful, there would be a recommendation that the idea was worthy of further development and that the identified goals and objectives would be likely to be achieved if the project was expanded. This report presents findings on the use of these activities with at-risk Hispanic youth in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico, most of whom were currently (or had been) incarcerated.