Welcome to our Changemakers presentation page and thank you for viewing our project video!

In this project, we work with youth, teachers, school districts, and non-profit organizations across Massachusetts to develop and implement a youth-driven program using a tiered mentoring model, where high school youth support middle school youth from their communities in learning the interdisciplinary science of hydroponics. The curriculum that is utilized in this project is grounded in a social justice framework, with a focus on Food Justice and engaging the youth to address issues around food access that exist in their communities by designing, building, and maintaining larger scale hydroponic systems in after-school settings.

As part of adapting our project to the school closures due to the pandemic, we engaged and relied upon our youth leaders to mentor and engage families through activities around hydroponics and automation. This involved redesigning our larger scale hydroponics systems into take-home kits (one-tier and two-tier mini-hydroponics systems) that incorporated 3D printed components for attaching microcontrollers and sensors to the system for monitoring plant growth. We also designed a suite of lessons and activities that focused on incorporating concepts around hydroponics, coding, and automation, which were hosted and organized online for the middle-school youth and their families to access and learn together as part of weekly sessions, and we developed training modules to prepare our high-school leaders to mentor and engage youth and their families through the new curriculum (the project resources and curriculum materials can be accessed here).

Through our research we have found significant impacts of the project on the value, efficacy, and interest of the high school student participants and youth leaders to pursue both higher education and STEM areas. We have also found that the near-peer mentoring approach is highly motivating and engaging for the high school students, as this enables them to envision themselves as leaders and as someone who has the capacity to utilize science to drive change in their community.

Good Morning Everyone!

In your video, I really appreciated hearing a student leader talk about the impact of this initiative on his own sense of self. That was a truly beautiful and inspiring moment. So I would love to hear more about how these student leaders worked with younger students, or near-peers. Might you say a bit more about what this looked like in practice? (How were they partnered? What role did the older student play? How did they collaborate?) And how did you measure the impact of this mentoring on the students’ future in STEM fields (both for the mentors and the mentees)?

I would love to learn more about the integration of justice issues in this learning! I run a program rooted in civic engagement surrounding climate and environmental justice (in Boston).  This could be a great connection!

All of our teachers and students are learning by doing and collecting data. Project based learning activities allow for us to experience learning, help others understand on how to help our city and school district become more self sustainable using renewable energy solutions like Solar and growing our own home science hydroponics fresh greens indoors and outdoors. Food justice happens when we learn better ways to create local resources to help our community have access to more nutritious foods and change our lives to become producers using STEM focused curriculum. We are Springfield Public Schools ChangeMakers Hydroponics science. Please visit our online school. We would love to connect with you. 

ChangeMakersSpringfield.com 

Hi Rajeev and the team,

Your program reminds me of an ASTC initiative called Youth ALIVE that brought high school students (with various backgrounds) into science museums and gave the training they needed for responsible positions.  It changed the lives of many of the participants.  I interviewed some of them (see J. Museum Ed., 25[3] 9-13, 2000).  I hope you will keep good records of the individual participants' development and keep track of them.

Your adaptation of the program for the Covid-19 crisis is impressive.

Yes, we have been tracking the youth over time.  So far all the food justice leaders across the cities have gone on to some kind of post-secondary training whether the technical training in the military, college, or community college.  We have about 60% of them opting to study some kind of STEM field once there and given that one one of our recruiting goals is to recruit youth who are interested in social justice, helping their community but have opted out of science and that the program helps them to opt back in is of particular importance to us.

Marcello and Mike, thank you for your responses! I am impressed by the breadth of your program and how carefully you have developed the various levels of leadership. I love this line, "We not only have an impact on the children’s learning we are a network of support and lifelong mentoring." To build relationships like this that can follow and inspire students for their entire educational journey is quite incredible. Your project and another one focused on peer mentoring (see this one: https://stemforall2021.videohall.com/presentations/1923) have really convinced me, or re-convinced me I should say, how essential and potentially transformative peer mentoring is.

Dear Amy, Thank you 🙏 your feedback is very much appreciated. I did take a look at the virtual NAC and nine programs. I agree with you, they are a good project to connect with.

Amy Alznauer took the words out of my mouth -- I love all the different levels of leadership embedded in this work. And of course a great and creative adaptation to home!

Congratulations on an innovative and impactful project. The long term successes are impressive!

Congrats Change Makers team! 

I was really impressed by your engagement of student mentors, learners, and field experts to collaboratively design a solution to increase food access for families by growing greens/vegetables hydroponically.  I loved that you cultivated a deep interest in STEM fields with many student mentors choosing a STEM field of study.  In addition, you were able to keep the youth change-makers mentoring and contributing during a time of intense COVID restrictions.  I also loved the level of engineering and design in the shift to smaller home hydroponic units with microcontrollers and sensors.  Very impressive!  I also work with a team of MN high school students to also address food justice by growing lettuce and greens hydroponically at their school.  Continuing the program during COVID was challenging and we shifted to a virtual Farm to Fork program where students received at-home agriculture learning kits to grow food and cook with community members virtually. I would love to connect with you in the future. 

Very innovative and impressive engagement with the Youths  .This  is one of the  unique   project for the youths to understand the environment  and engage in growing our own food. This project will definitely  create a deep interest in STEM education and  help the youths to engage in learning process , share the experiences with their peers and  spend their quality time with their family members

This you is a wonderful project and clearly impacts youth who are participating. But it is also highly resourced. I am wondering what broader recommendations you have for those teachers and instructors interested in the approach, but without access to such a team?  

I am very impressed by your adaptation to COVID-19 and commitment to using a social justice framework in STEM. Bravo!

Hi Candice, we really appreciate your support. Going 100 percent remote was very challenging. We had no idea, it was the balance of different skills each teacher contributed and we actually had our most successful ChangeMakers school year of the last 5. 
The Home Science environment truly helped make sure everyone had first hands on experience and the online school allowed for 24/7 on demand access to all of the projects based learning activities. Each student has at home a home science lab complete with everything they need to thrive into STEM activities. 
The relationship between Mentor and Mentee is stronger than ever before. The communication between me and each student was enhanced by going remote. I also was delivering the materials sometimes a few times every month. This also was powerful, having to organize and coordinate the  🚚 process was a huge Team building activity. There are so many positives much to address on how amazing this Pandemic year has been for SPS ChangeMakers Hydroponics Science 2021. We are resilient we are Springfield Strong.

Thank you, Changemakers!  You are doing such vitally important work, from so many angles.

There is a good deal of similarity with our projects.  It's a pleasure learning from you; we are now real fans.

Question:  Does Changemakers take part in your local science festivals?  Do you take part in field trip hubs?  In the Boston / Cambridge area, you have some of the country's best science festivals.

As you see on our video, two of the science festivals we take part in are the US Science and Engineering Festival and the Bay Area Science Festival.  These events are such a great opportunity to reach very large audiences.  Your work is certainly of a caliber to do well at such events, if you are not already.

Physical and hybrid events in non-pandemic times. Of course, live remote events during the pandemic.

What a pleasure to view your video and learn about your program!

Hello James, we do participate ever year the STCC SUSTAINATHON , we won first place this year and second place two years ago. This year we also are collaborating with cooler Communities western Massachusetts. In 2019 we published our hydroponics science recipes book and won second place 🥈 in the Safe Foods national competition.

I will reach out to those science festivals you mentioned. I will watch your video. Thank you very much for your kind words and support.