Innoverge Blog

Overview:

Every year, Innoverge hosts an Education Program to expose youth to a particular topic in STEM through interactive, project-based learning. In the past, we’ve hosted Sustainable STEMx, an in-person program with 65 students in Seattle in partnership with Upward Bound to highlight the science behind significant traditions in indigenous culture. 

This summer, we organized our 2023 Summer Education Program: STEMxLaw, a series of workshops introducing 6th-8th graders to the intersection of STEM and civics on topics ranging from forensic case studies to DNA analysis to the structure of government. We partnered with Keller Regional Gifted Center, a public magnet middle school in Chicago, Illinois.

Program Breakdown: 

Our Education Heads (Damian Musk, Aaliyah Short, and Debbie Mojekwu) and our Internal Director (Veda Dayananda) developed an interactive, hands-on curriculum. Aaliyah and Debbie taught the program in person with ten students.

The opening workshop, The Shape of Civics, discussed the nature of civics, the founding principles of American democracy, and gerrymandering as a symptom of a flawed system. It also featured discussion about active citizenship and participatory democracy as a method of creating a more robust republic

Forensic Science in Criminal Justice debunked some of the common misconceptions  surrounding the application of forensics in criminology. Students played murder mystery and spot-the-difference games to develop some of the important skills in this career, like observation, teamwork, and communication. 

Forensic Psychology discussed the role of psychology within the legal arena. Students explored major psychology-based caveats and flaws that could influence the legal system. They played a word recall activity to model the effect of proactive interference and memory decay, and discussed case studies involving DNA forensics. 

The fourth workshop, Law and Policy Creation, focused on the process of law creation by examining the steps in which bills are created. Students split into three groups and debated major bills to reenact a Congressional debate and further understand the law-making process.

In the final workshop, students learned forensic biology hands-on with a lab kit by using real techniques to match fingerprints, analyze DNA, identify fibers, test for poisons, and cast footprints.

We’d like to thank the Rajendra Social Impact Foundation and Vital Voices for their generous financial support, which has greatly assisted us in acquiring workshop activity materials.

Get Involved:

Innoverge is a global youth initiative diversifying the next generation of scientists and changemakers innovating for social good. Our mission is to empower youths from underserved communities in STEM with educational programs, resources, and mentorship. Would you like to support our programs, like the Remote Learning Program, to expand barrier-less STEM education for youths? Donate here, or get involved with Innoverge by subscribing to our Newsletter, attending our Fireside Chats, or becoming a Regional Director! Want to participate in our next Remote Learning Program? Email hello@innoverge.org.

Innoverge is a global youth-run organization focused on combining science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with empathy, storytelling, leadership, and ethics through STEMxHumanities educational initiatives. Founded in 2017, Innoverge has grown to a worldwide impact, focusing on developing longer-range programming within underserved and underrepresented youth communities.

We’re grateful for a high-impact year in 2022!  We’re especially thankful for the Rajendra Foundation Grant that funded many of our initiatives.

2022 Impact at a Glance:

• Around 1,000 students impacted through educational and chapter initiatives
• 70+ STEMx workshops and programs conducted
• Expanded to 11 new regions worldwide
• Distributed 3 chapter grants from the United States to Kenya

Total Impact to Date:

• A total impact of over 10.2k students worldwide
• 400+ workshops, programs, and camps conducted in total
• A global team of 77+ regional chapters, past and present
• 110+ lesson plans developed focusing on real-world and intersectional STEM

Educational Initiatives:

Sustainable STEMx 2022 Summer Learning Program 

• Duration: 8 weeks
• Impact: 65 students
• Grades: 7th-12th

During the summer of 2022, Innoverge collaborated with Pierce College’s Upward Bound Program to organize an 8-week Sustainable STEMx summer education program, impacting 65 students across grades 7 through 12. Innoverge collaborated with onsite instructor Sui-Lan Ho’okano to both develop original curriculum and programming, along with disburse funding to cover the costs of the workshops. 

Read about the impact the program had on our blog post here. 

Regional Chapter Initiatives 

• Impact: 1,000+ students
• Events: 70+ workshops
• Micro-grants: 3 bundle micro-grants

This year, Innoverge hosted workshops across regions worldwide, ranging from cybersecurity to astronomy. Workshop locations include but are not limited to: Monrovia, Liberia; San Ramon, California; Butuan, Philippines; Pueblo Nuevo, Nicaragua;  Chicago, Illinois; Charlotte, North Carolina; Sugarland, Texas; Nairbo, Kenya and more! 

Our youth Regional Directors are supported by a vast range of resources: fully developed lesson plans and curriculum guides, micro-grant funding, onboarding support, logistical resources, and bi-annual events. See some of our spotlights below:

Monrovia, Liberia – Mustapha Bah held an after-school STEM enrichment program on sustainability and plastics for 35+ students in July 2022. See the video from the workshop here. Later in August, Mustapha organized the 2022 Girls Summit introducing young women to STEM and leadership development. In total, Mustapha’s work through Innoverge reached 120+ students across Liberia.

Sugar Land, Texas – Anne Christiono held three workshops on math techniques for 32+ students at middle schools in her local community.

Programming Initiatives:

• 9 monthly newsletters
• 4 fireside chats

Innoverge’s Programs team worked to increase accessibility and equity in STEM and leadership related opportunities. 

Each month, Innoverge releases a newsletter highlighting free and accessible opportunities, scholarship, and educational programs for students. The newsletters have accumulated 1,240+ opens and 1,400+ total publication visits, totalling a 2,600+ impression reach. Read our newsletters here. 

In addition, the Programs team curates and invites various leaders at the intersection of STEM and social impact fields. In total, four fireside chats were conducted, featured below and on our YouTube channel. 

Amanda Loh – Software Engineer and Professional Ballerina

Caeley Looney – Space Mission Analyst and Founder of Reinvented Magazine

Julia Landauer – Professional Race Car Driver

Tiffani Teachey – Mechanical Engineer and Bestselling Children’s Book Author

Do you know anyone interested in marine ecology🌊 Sign up for our Marine Ecology and Conservation workshop led by one of our Regional Directors, Alina Zhong!

Our workshop is virtual and available for any elementary or middle school student. The program will be from 1-2 PM PST on July 30th (5 DAYS LEFT!). If you have any questions, please contact Alina at this email. Sign up here to learn about marine ecology and conservation with us🐠

Thank you all for following us for another year on our journey here at Innoverge! Before we launch into 2022, our team wanted to take a moment to review everything Innoverge has accomplished over the past year. Here are some of the highlights from 2021:

Global Community Education – This past year alone, our Global Affairs team onboarded, trained, and supported over 24 new Regional Directors: young leaders in STEM bringing Innoverge’s educational programming to their communities through a localized approach. With a slow shift back into in-person learning across the world, we provided 3+ international micro-grants for workshop materials and technologies. And with 60+ chapter events, our total impact over the past 5 years has now reached 8,000+ students from underserved and underrepresented backgrounds in STEM.

Fireside Chats and Newsletters – This year, we focused on digital outreach and content to bring STEMxHumanities exposure to students anytime, anywhere. Our Programs team held 5 fireside chats with fascinating leaders and professionals in various interdisciplinary STEM careers. You can find this conversations on our Youtube. We also curated and published 10 newsletters and brought learning, career, and service opportunities to the inboxes of hundreds of subscribers. In total, our digital content received 2,000+ engagements in 2021 alone.

Remote Learning Program – Our second Remote Learning Program occurred during the Spring of 2021. Our Education team worked with over 18 families across the country, shipping free STEM kits and implementing a 3-week program of asynchronous and synchronous learning for elementary-aged students. From electrical circuits to rockets, students were guided through multimedia curriculum, demos, and guides in spanning the realms of leadership, physics, and chemistry.

Incubator Mentorship Program – We fully launched our Incubator Mentorship Program this year, with a focus on training high school and college-aged mentors to work with younger students across 4 weeks of customizable STEMxHumanities tracks, culminating into an end-of-program pitch. With a total of 27 mentors and mentees registered combined, our incubator aims to connect and facilitate student leaders and learners through innovative and intersectional curriculum.

With the highlights above, and hundreds of hours of behind the scenes work by executive team and regional directors, we’d like to call it a wrap on 2021! We’re looking forward to a year of growth and impact ahead, and if you’d like to support us, please explore our website or contact us at hello@innoverge.org.

B👀! Did we scare you?

Catch up on the latest Innoverge updates, opportunities, and more with our latest Newsletter (with some Halloween spirit🎃)!

Haven’t subscribed yet to our Newsletter? Don’t worry! Sign up below for a treat🍫