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Students, faculty, and community members gathered at San Diego City College for the annual Research Symposium on April 17, where innovative, student-led projects took center stage, highlighting topics from climate justice and public health to artificial intelligence and social equity.
Campus was bustling, energy was high and the excitement from the participants was palpable. Hundreds of students walked the campus either taking a tour or coming to look at the research projects. Students presented their work, usually in groups of two, for about 5 hours to a captivated audience of dozens of people.
The goal of the symposium was to merge everyday concepts with STEM and to highlight students’ work. All of the projects had some sort of personal connection and a deep passion for the topic being presented. Students brimmed with excitement when asked about their projects and showed pride when they got the chance to explain more details.
Dioana Jimenez, a symposium participant, explained how she incorporated her Chicana culture into her project. She presented a Chimalli, a traditional Aztec shield, instead of the typical unit circle. Her Chimalli was tediously beaded by hand which she said was the hardest part of her project.
“I’m in trigonometry with Dr. Rob, and he knows how I do, Aztec dancing with my family,” Jimenez said. “That is why we wanted to do it… to show representation in our culture and try to intersect it with math.”
This project was a continuation of approach Jimenez’s Puente professor, Rob Rubalcaba, integrated into the classroom. Puente is a learning community aimed at helping Latino and other disadvantaged groups successfully transfer to four-year universities.
Jimenez said that she connected culture with learning, which made the class successful. No one failed Rubalcaba’s class this semester, a first for Puente.
Another participant, Glendon Austin, a business major, said that his project helped him connect science to one of his favorite things: pizza.
“So, there is math and pizza,” Austin said. “I talked about how elevation affects your pizza, but where you are in the world kind of [determines] your moisture content of your dough and your cheese.”
Austin’s long-term goal is starting his own business. He said that this project has helped him hone the skills required. Organization was the most important skill Austin said he gained from this project and explaining his process to onlookers helped him refine his social skills.
City College offers an abundance of opportunities for students to explore through their Life Sciences and STEM Pathways programs. The goal of City’s STEM programs is to bring diversity to the field and help students transfer into 4-year programs.
Historically, women and people of color have been underrepresented in the sciences. “Looking at STEM degrees, men outpace women (Black men, 14.3%; Black women, 9.2%; Latino men, 26.3%; Latina women, 13.9%),” according to a study by the National Center for Educational Statistics.
The research symposium shows how education can be done in different and new ways. When students can connect what they are learning to aspects of their lives they are proud of or deeply connected to, they come up with some pretty interesting things.
Edited by Dwight Byrum, Jordan Bell.
