Samariah (Sammy) Jacobs, a UMass Lowell Mechanical Engineering junior, is doing amazing work getting inner city Boston youth creatively engaged in technology and engineering, as a mentor in the 14 year old Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program at the South End Technology Center @ Tent City. 

Sammy, fellow L2T/T2L college mentors and youth teachers just won an international Google RISE award for their work and the National Science Foundation is studying their work as national best practices in a Digital Literacies research project.  

Each year, 36 teenage youth teachers, who are selected to represent Boston, learn 6 different technology and engineering modules, build projects that solve community issues, then offer free 3-4 week STEAM camps for 700+ Boston elementary and middle school youth at 25 community organizations who would not otherwise offer STEM enrichment.  

Sammy was a youth teacher when she was in high school and now is in her second year of working as a college mentor in the program.  Last year, Sammy developed a solar energy activity where youth soldered up solar circuits to power the propeller on their own lasercut wood airplane.  She just developed two activities and began teaching them to new youth teachers:  Teh Squish-ay (using conductive dough to teach electricity and circuits with LEDs, motors, tilt switches, photocells) and Blinkie Paper (uses linkages with circuit stickers to create light up cards).  

 

My sincere appreciation to Dr. Susan Klimczak, L2T Director of Special Programs, for calling attention to Sammy’s inspiring community contributions. She is a shining example of just one of the many reasons why I am so proud to be Dean of the College of Engineering. Look for more information on Sammy and her work at Tent City in future posts.