WASHINGTON —
Zainab Abbas in the Founder and CEO of SciTech2U is a summer camp that teaches kids about different careers in STEM. The camp is available for students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
“We offer STEM education. This summer we're offering aeronautics camp, last year we offered a 3D printing camp, and we offer robotics, coding, genetics, medical, energy, and so much more,” says Abbas.
Abbas, a former biotechnology college instructor, has run this summer camp for 12 years. She wants to make sure Black and Indigenous people of color or BIPOC communities are shown all that STEM careers have to offer from a young age.
Abbas says, “I decided to try to capture younger students, K-12, and expose them to fields in STEM like biotechnology, aeronautics, 3D printing, engineering, and hopefully if they get an early start that will help stave off what most people call the preschool to prison pipeline where we could actually help them go beyond that and increase representation of BIPOC communities in the STEM field.”
The summer camps have been quite successful over the years. According to Abbas, more than 60% of the SciTech2U students continue on to pursue a career in STEM.
We spoke with Michael who is participating in the aeronautics camp this summer. He says, “The camp [has] been fun. We do a bunch of activities like flight simulators, study how planes work, and how they especially lift off the ground.”
SciTech2U partnered with DC Department of Parks and Recreation Boost Camps to help make this summer’s sessions possible.
Marcus Allen, the Program Manager for DPR Boost Camps, spoke about the partnership. He said, “What we were able to do was provide them space and some of the technology that they needed to be able to do this program. So we were able to provide them with the laptops that they needed so that they can actually have the ability to do the program. They came with half of it we came with the other, so it was great synergy.”
If you would like more information on how to get involved with SciTech2U you can click here for the details.
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