Exposing Underrepresented & Minority Students to STEM - Meagan Naraine, Impact Maker

Culturally Relevant Science (CRSci) is a 501(c)(3) that provides inclusive STEM curriculum, professional development, and exposure trips for underrepresented/minority students. It is CRSci’s mission that ALL students see themselves in STEM, regardless of their cultural backgrounds. As co-founder, I am constantly searching for opportunities that will empower our mission by strengthening our infrastructure and expanding our audience.

For example, immediately after our launch in July 2021, I had us join Teach for America’s MetroAtlanta Social Innovation Fellowship 1.0. This fellowship provided us with coaching from highly successful educational entrepreneurs like Claudine Miles of Restore More and Sylvester Chisom of Global CTE. They also encouraged us to compete in TFA’s MetroAtlanta Shark Tank event, where we secured a grand prize of $5,000 and formed relationships with stakeholders like Wes French of the digital curriculum platform called Kiddom. Also from this fellowship, we formed a partnership with Colleen Hinds-Rodgers of the Equity Consulting Group, who heard about us in a TFA leadership meeting and wants us to develop a culturally relevant physics curriculum. Social Innovation 1.0 ended in May 2022, and we joined their 2.0 version starting June 2022. This fellowship will give us $1,500 to use toward professionally developing ourselves as a company. In summer, my decision to join Social Innovation 1.0 has empowered CRSci through coaching, funding, partnerships, and more fellowships.

Another action I have taken to empower CRSci’s cause is speaking at educational conferences. This enables us to attract an audience outside of our personal schools and school systems. For instance, I am part of Georgia State University’s DSPETL Fellowship, and they invited me to speak about CRSci at the 2022 Southeastern Regional Noyce Conference. In attendance were teachers from all over the Southeast - Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, etc. This was my first time speaking to teachers outside of Atlanta, Georgia, who will now take CRSci back to their schools. In summary, speaking at conferences will gather more attention towards our website, and we will impact even more schools, teachers, and students.

A third action I have taken to empower CRSci’s cause is applying to any grant I can find that fits our mission. I began grant writing in May 2022, and have secured $4,000 from the Society for Science, $10,000 from the VELA Education Fund, and $10,000 from 4.0 Schools Tiny Fellowship. Thus, this Impact Microgrant is an example in itself for how I am empowering CRSci. To scale our organization, we need funding. Both me and my co-founder are still teachers, and we cannot commit to CRSci full-time until we solidify stable funding.