Page 22 - Iris Tennessee Teen Judges Book 2022

Employment Experience:
As a one-on-one tutor for students for B & J Auto Sales in Olive Branch, Mississippi, I worked during the entire pandemic to help students stay abreast with their ambiguous adjustments to online virtual learning.
While serving as STEM Ambassador in the West Tennessee STEM Hub, Memphis, TN, July 2018 – Present, I develop partnerships with educators by assisting in planning and creating presentations, study guides and assessments to evaluate and boost student knowledge. I also demonstrate how to use Tinkercad and tutoring for students in STEM subjects. Finally, I help prepare students for their future plans by teaching them about the opportunities in STEM fields.
As a camp leader and mentor, I worked in the Girls Experiencing Engineering Summer Camp, Memphis, TN, July 2018 – Present. I mentored over one-hundred students and developed skills to help get young ladies interested in STEM fields. We used Tinkercad as a tool to teach students how to build structures and design bridges. Additionally, we conduct zoom group meetings to work on group projects. I further worked the National Flight Academy’s camp during the summer with over one-hundred students.
For the Boys and Girls Club Hatchie River Region, Covington, TN, November 2019 – July 2021, I prepared and presented daily lessons and science experiments, tutored students in STEM subjects to better their understanding, and taught students how to design structures on Tinkercad to help develop technological and design skills.
Special Skills & Activities:
Throughout the years, my Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) platform has reached so many kids by filling a gap and building a bridge of understanding that every child can get into the field of their desire by learning basics very early.
SCIENCE: I became a STEM Ambassador at the University of Memphis whereby through virtual education or going out in the Memphis Shelby County Schools, I got the chance to teach STEM to young children across the city as well as through the Mid-South. During the COVID-19 pandemic to present day, I have taught STEM lessons to students at Cummings Elementary every Friday. I was able to secure STEM materials and supplies donated by my former high school STEM plant science teacher. At Cummings Elementary, we performed many experiments like growing plants in the classroom, to later transferring it to the school garden after spring emerged. This was a successful venture because we measured the progress of plant growth throughout time. This resulted in a final STEM product that students were able to see and feel. Most of the students were delighted to learn about how to grow produce and to learn that they could garden instead of purchasing it from a store. The science activity was shared with multiple groups throughout Cummings Elementary School that wanted to take part in this project. In the following weeks, while we tended to plant growth, I introduced STEM songs to students that I had learned in grade school to help recall and remember various science topics like ‘erosion’ and ‘weathering” of which were related to the STEM theme plant science. Students enjoyed singing songs while dancing with gestures and bodily kinesthetic movements to what is called interactive dramatic play. It is important to express to children that learning STEM is fun!
TECHNOLOGY: The Boys and Girls Club of America is a nationally known organization serving 4 million youth with the attempt to provide a safe place by giving them an opportunity to discover their great futures. I helped to start the STEM program at the Boys and Girls Club of Hatchie River Region (BGCHRR) of Covington in Tipton County in my role as STEM Ambassador. The STEM Ambassador program is a group of select students that work under the auspices of the engineering department at the University of Memphis. While serving as a STEM Ambassador, I was assigned as a teacher at the BGCHRR, from Fall 2019 to the end of the summer of 2021. This is where I presented multiple STEM lessons directly to middle school and high school aged club kids. We made catapults, bows and arrows, elephant toothpaste, and waterslides using accessible resources of which includes popsicle sticks, rubber bands and tape. Students were able to play with their creations afterwards, and namely, the most exciting game was the bulls-eye target game. These games not only taught technology but it taught mathematics, too, since students had to calculate points earned. I introduced the idea that one does not have to use