During the 2016-2017 school year, a group of female students and teachers from our small public school will be participating in the inaugural year of a unique experiential learning program. Throughout the year, we will be learning about Cuba through the lens of STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math), History and Language. The program will culminate with a 10-day field study in Cuba in the spring of 2017.
Our students are in grades 10-12 with a wide array of academic interests that they would like to hone to create their own research projects in Cuba. When they return from their time in Cuba, they will present their work to students and educators across our city.
We have designed this experiential-learning program specifically for our female students. Our goal is to create meaningful experiences in and increase their exposure to STEM fields in which women are severely underrepresented. We chose Cuba as our focus because of the unparalleled opportunities and unique perspectives it offers during this pivotal point in its history.
We believe that students learn best when they are agents of their education. This interdisciplinary study of Cuba will be of our students' design. They will select the topics they would like to investigate and explore it through multiple lenses. Throughout the process, they will apply our school's five Core Values: Inquiry, Research, Collaboration, Presentation and Reflection.
Ultimately, these ladies will take on the roles of researchers and students in order to be leaders and teachers for students across our city. This unique international experience will broaden their global perspective and equip them with skills to be 21st century global citizens.
In Their Own Words
We are students interested in fields such as medicine, journalism, world politics, Spanish language and history. Our common goal is to learn about Cuba through different perspectives then develop research projects that speak to our passions. Additionally, we want to learn from Cubans and our field study in Cuba, then bring back that knowledge to our community through workshops. We look forward to being leaders in education in our city through this experience.
Our school's name has the word "leadership" in it, so we start in our first year reflecting on how we can take leadership in different spheres. Through this project, we will be the first high school students in our school district to take part in this kind of program in Cuba. We will take the responsibilities that come with this honor seriously. Our leadership will not start or end with the trip in Cuba. We will share our projects at a national conference, our Home and School Association, and in multiple classes.
This project is so important to us for so many different reasons. For example, I (Sopheary) want to know how all Cuban students have access to education. I want to learn about how their funding is distributed and whether or not they place emphasis on certain fields. This could help our city and community because we can learn new things about how to make our education system more fair and teaching methods that we can possibly adopt in our own schools. Public education in our city is in a horrible financial crisis and is not equitable. We want to research what Cuba does and see how we could apply their practices to our schools here.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Manuel and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.