Final Project
Our Mission Statement:
The purpose of Girls Build LA is to empower young women in communities around the country, primarily by encouraging them to make an impact in their community through projects that we create and design. Simply put, we look for a problem and try to solve it. The problem that our team at Crown Prep identified is that girls often are not introduced to STEM ideas until middle or high school age. We think that by introducing young girls to STEM ideas in manners as common as the clothing that they wear and the toys that they play with, they will become more familiar with these themes and more likely to spark an interest at a young age that will continue through their education. We would like to solve this problem by bridging the gap of opportunities for young girls and by creating giving the young girls in our community a chance to become introduced and accustomed to STEM ideas at an early age through their clothing and toys.
We are reaching out to STEM based clothing and toy companies to ask for donations to help us spread these tools throughout our community. All donations that we receive, whether they be clothing, toys, or monetary, will be spread to elementary schools in our community. In addition, our team is working to design a line of STEM based clothing that we will donate to the girls at our neighboring elementary schools. We will also have our designed t-shirts and apparel available to purchase, all proceeds will go towards purchasing additional STEM resources. Please consider donating or purchasing one of our t-shirts, and help us build a better world!
The purpose of Girls Build LA is to empower young women in communities around the country, primarily by encouraging them to make an impact in their community through projects that we create and design. Simply put, we look for a problem and try to solve it. The problem that our team at Crown Prep identified is that girls often are not introduced to STEM ideas until middle or high school age. We think that by introducing young girls to STEM ideas in manners as common as the clothing that they wear and the toys that they play with, they will become more familiar with these themes and more likely to spark an interest at a young age that will continue through their education. We would like to solve this problem by bridging the gap of opportunities for young girls and by creating giving the young girls in our community a chance to become introduced and accustomed to STEM ideas at an early age through their clothing and toys.
We are reaching out to STEM based clothing and toy companies to ask for donations to help us spread these tools throughout our community. All donations that we receive, whether they be clothing, toys, or monetary, will be spread to elementary schools in our community. In addition, our team is working to design a line of STEM based clothing that we will donate to the girls at our neighboring elementary schools. We will also have our designed t-shirts and apparel available to purchase, all proceeds will go towards purchasing additional STEM resources. Please consider donating or purchasing one of our t-shirts, and help us build a better world!
Our Process:
Our team met every Monday to develop our project. Weekly activities included: reaching out to and responding to companies, researching STEM toys, creating a budget, developing a framework letter to be sent out, and writing thank you cards when donations were received. Additionally our team worked to plan visits to local elementary schools were they would facilitate a STEM activity for the students. Our team's goal was to bring STEM ideas to young children, and girls in particular, so that their interest would be piqued at a young age. Our team spent months planning this trip including reaching out to the elementary school administration and teachers, choosing an activity to facilitate, gathering materials, and planning facilitation.
Project Outcomes:
So far our team has taken one trip to a local elementary school to facilitate a workshop and are currently in the process of planning another. In this workshop we had over 40 elementary school students partake in the building challenges. As a team we reached out to over 40 companies through phone calls and email.Fortunately, while we only had 3 companies agree to make donations to our cause, the donations given will give over 150 elementary school students the opportunity to play with STEM toys. These donations allow girls in multiple elementary schools the ability to be introduced to STEM projects and ideas. Additionally, our team has continued to sell our Team T-Shirts within our community. All money made from the sale of these shirts goes towards purchasing new STEM resources for our elementary school girls. Our team has seen great growth and development over the course of the year. Before beginning this project, most members of our team had limited knowledge of experience with advocacy. Our project not only opened the door for young girls in STEM fields but also allowed us to develop a voice and recognize that our actions and decisions do affect those around us.
Reflection on our year:
This year was a major learning year for us. The majority of our team was all first year members of Girls Build. However, after a few meetings our group began to really come together and truly became a team. Choosing a theme for our project to focus on was rather easy for us. As a STEM school we frequently talk about the importance of STEM and the opportunity gap that exists between women and men especially in communities like our own. We know that by increasing interest in STEM at a young age it is much more likely that women will continue into STEM fields later in life. We thought that the best way to do this would be to reach out to companies, gather donations, and distribute them to elementary schools in our communities for young girls to use. We also organized a STEM workshop, with another one coming up soon, at our sister elementary school to work with kids in a small group setting. Overall we were happy with the success of our project. Unfortunately we did not have as many companies as we had hoped make donations to our cause but we feel that just by reaching out and sending them our mission letter we were able to advocate and make an impact. We are so thankful for those companies that believed in us and made a donation, thank you! Our field trips to the Microsoft store and the elementary school were great ways to make sure that we stayed motivated and brainstorming new ideas throughout the entire school year. As we continue this project we would like to think of new and more creative ways to gather donations as well as try to bring in some companies or organizations to run workshops with the elementary school girls. However, we really feel as though our team did an awesome job at helping young girls in our community gain a better opportunity for STEM literacy at a young age.