About the HSI mini grant series
Each year, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion awards a variety of high-impact mini grants to campus projects that support Latino students through targeted initiatives. Last year, the office distributed $35,000 across 17 projects. This story is one of 11 Mustang News features highlighting where and how those grants made an impact.
Professors Alejandra Yep and Jasmine Nation created Nuestra Ciencia, a STEM club that focuses on undergraduates becoming mentors for Latino youth in local dual immersion bilingual programs in elementary schools in 2021.
Through a collaborative process between Nuestra Ciencia’s research, lesson development, outreach team Neustra Ciencia combats microbiology misconceptions through classroom visits and field trips.
What started as Dr. Yep going into her sons’ elementary school to teach a mini lesson on microbiology, has grown into a university community network with over 20 undergraduate students working to educate and inspire Latinx youth in the central coast. Since then, with the Cal Poly’s Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) Mini Grant, Nuestra Ciencia is committed to effectively spread the message of the importance of vaccines and their importance to a larger community.
Nuestra Ciencia has created and given multiple lessons on important microbiological topics such as Disease Transmission and Prevention, Cuatro Pasos (Four Steps to Food Safety), Misterio en la Cocina (The Kitchen Mystery) and Señor Levadura (Mr. Yeast). One of their oldest lessons, and their priority message is the education and the importance of vaccines.
This project started with “The Pepe Story,” a story created by Nuestra Ciencia to show kids the importance of vaccination and different ways to protect others that aren’t vaccinated, such as herd immunity. This story has now developed into scripts across three languages, English, Spanish and Mexteco. The funding from the grant goes towards the students developing the video by adding voiceovers and editing it, as well as a professional Mexteco translator.
One project lead of Nuestra Ciencia, Perla Ramos Carranza, a Frost postdoctoral fellow, shared that the main goal is to not only share videos with the elementary students and their families, but the greater San Luis Obispo community.
The hope is that these videos will be implemented into community health centers and will be a shareable resource to help in cases where doctors may need other resources to properly support their patients.
With the help of funding such as the HSI Mini Grants, Nuestra Ciencia’s goal is to continue to not only educate, but to empower and inspire a generation of Latinx youth to find a passion for science. Through classroom visits and field trips, these mentors actively encourage students to find a love for science.
“Even just in those 45 minutes that we have with the students it makes a difference for them,” Carranza said. “They’re able to see themselves as scientists and that science is fun.”