Dr. Brittany Anderson Shares Everyday Teaching Methods for Young STEM Students

Dr. Brittany Anderson, like most people, did not realize that many of her childhood experiences, activities and family traditions involved science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

“One of the most distinct memories I have is making soap with my great-grandmother,” Anderson recalled during a March 19 lunch and learn, presented by the POWER Special Emphasis Group for Women’s History Month. “The science of stirring the water, putting the chemicals together, creating and shaping the soap— it took me until I was in adult to realize that I had been doing STEM all those years.”

Anderson, now an assistant professor of urban education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, helps develop pathways to STEM careers for young minority female students with her See ME in STEM (SMIS) program.

The program is part of her education research project dubbed “CAREER: Critical and Culturally Relevant Experiential Learning: Fostering Early STEM Exploration with Gifted and High-Ability Black Girls and their Elementary Teachers,” funded by a $1 million National Science Foundation grant. It is currently implemented at Druid Hills Academy, a pre-K through eighth grade school in Charlotte.

“The goal is to think about ways we can think about how our girls are consistently engaging with STEM,” she said. “How can we reimagine how we discuss it, where we discuss and the ways in which we give access in ways that we might not usually think about?”

Anderson used her own experiences with her family when she was young to highlight how the generational knowledge young girls gain from their families can be considered STEM practices.

“It’s not always the classroom environments. My mother was an engineer at heart, she could put anything together. My grandmother was a culinary scientist, she was known for her cooking skills. She also loved flowers, she knew how to breed different flowers together, she knew the soil, she knew what they needed. She was a botanist.”

Connecting these diverse experiences with an intersectional plan of action is key to Anderson’s project—making sure that young students understand how to break stereotypes and disrupt the typical ways of thinking about the STEM field.

“We don’t have to have a lab coat or expensive equipment to engage in STEM,” she said. “STEM is a part of our everyday lived experiences.”

In Anderson’s SMIS program, students are encouraged to find their own interests and establish their own knowledge base along with their teachers and families.

“There are so many of them interested in hair, so I say, ‘OK, how is this made? How is synthetic hair made? How are the polymers manufactured? Now let’s think about how this can be made more environmentally sustainable.’”

Students interested in cosmetics, perfumes, interior design and color theory, or any variety of real-life experiences that can be tied to STEM, are then guided to find ways to make those interests relevant in their learning process.

Tying back into her goal of disrupting STEM stereotypes, one of Anderson’s exercises for both the students and teachers involves asking them to draw what they think of when they hear “scientist.”

“I want to know who they see as scientists,” she said. “At first, young students may draw someone with crazy hair because they think of Einstein. When I do this with teachers, they often draw men or someone in a lab.

“But after we engage in these everyday practices, my students might draw me or their moms or their grandmothers.”

Breaking down these mental barriers for young students from marginalized communities allows them to see themselves as future leaders in STEM.

“They need to know that what they’re doing is meaningful, and the world needs what they’re doing,” Anderson said. “I told someone in my first research position how I wanted to do a project on Black women and Black research. I was told that no one would fund that. No one would find that meaningful.

“I knew it was valuable and worthwhile. I went to where my work was valued, where they gave me the time and tools. Even if it’s micro, somebody out there needs what you’re doing.”

If you missed the lunch and learn from March 19, you can view it here.

POWER’s Executive Champions are Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer Karen Cardin, Western Region Senior Vice President Ronny Rexrode and Central Region Senior Vice President Rebecca Santee. Sedric Thomas, financial operations manager, and Jeannie Hall, senior corporate policy specialist, are program managers.

To learn more about POWER and other Exchange Special Emphasis Programs, visit the Exchange HUB here. If you’d like to join a Special Emphasis Program, click here to join.