Blog
The STEAM City of Women - Week 6
Sofia
August 23, 2021
Monday 8/16
We’re in the home stretch! It's week 6 and the countdown for our last day and showcase has begun. I am both excited and sad at the same time. Before we get to that, let’s talk about Monday! Today, we had guest speaker Aarati Cohly. Aarati, a native New Yorker, is the Deputy Director of Strategic Planning and Executive Affairs at NYC Census 2020, an initiative launched by the City to ensure every New Yorker, especially those in historically underrepresented and immigrant communities, are fully counted and represented in the 2020 Census. Her passion and vision is to elevate local voices, bring impact to NYC communities, and inspire herself and others to carry out more public work. To clarify, Aarati’s job and concern is focusing on voters in general, which means she does not exhibit any party affiliation. She walked us through some of her challenges: her work is not easy or for the faint of heart. Sometimes there’s not enough funding or timing for certain projects or programs. In addition, sometimes bureaucracy itself gets in the way of Aarati’s work. Regardless, she has a good time with her colleagues who help her tackle challenges and figure things out together. She understands that her job is very fast paced at times but seems to always enjoy it as a good learning experience. Two of her key methods to organization and efficiency are planning ahead and budgeting. She says these two skills are critical because certain things don’t work out, so at least you have a strategy set and some organization to continue forward or redirect yourself and your team. What is the future of democracy in NYC? Five years from now, Aarati wants to continue...
The STEAM City of Women - Week 5
Sofia
August 17, 2021
Monday 8/9
Rise and shine, its Week 5! This morning, we worked on our Flower Power project and were visited by guest speaker LaTonya Jones! Analytical, expressive, and loyal LaTonya is the Director of the Community and External Affairs/EEO Officer at NYC Department of Records and Information Services. She arrived at this agency 6 years ago and works on the social media and public program events, community outreach, and sharing history with the NYC community. LaTonya explained how she worked in social services which in some situations was very stressful, but she met many amazing parents and role models along the way that she is grateful for. Because of her experiences and connections, she values the importance of teamwork. As an athlete, I most definitely agree with LaTonya on collaboration! Growing up, everyone told her to be a lawyer or teacher. Though she did like law and psychology and even wanted to be a profiler for the FBI, she minored in English and Sociology in college and grad school. In school, she became a tutor for students as a TA. At this point, she was torn between her original plan and teaching. However, in the end, she found her calling. Not only does she value teamwork, but LaTonya also understands that being authentic and fully present in her work is key, especially when representing the government. One thing is for certain, you never know how things will play out professionally. In her case, coworkers became her friends . Through the ups and downs of her job, in the end, she has had more good experiences than bad. Her advice...
The STEAM City of Women - Week 4
Sofia
August 8, 2021
Monday 8/2
Rise and shine everyone, it’s Monday of Week 4! This morning, after some daily polls, Amina led us into our Flower Power project. Amina taught us how to use Google Sheets to track our data for our zinnias. We learned that we can record the average of all our data, whether that is of each individual seed, or the average of the seeds in one week. It’s up to us to decide within our group! Amina showed us her spreadsheet which was very organized. It was a great example to show us how to arrange our data. After getting all our data ready and averages set, we will be making graphs. In our small groups, we discussed how our plants are doing and began calculating the averages for Destiny’s plants.
Next, for the second half of today’s meeting, we had guest speaker Tammy Jo, who has her own fashion business! She is now located in Savannah, Georgia, but lived in Florida and New York in the past. Tammy Jo went to school for acting and began working for Lucky Brand. There, she treated her job as school and maximized her experience for personal benefit later on. She began her own company after learning the structure of business and having the desire to do more on her own. Right now...
The STEAM City of Women - Week 3
Sofia
August 1, 2021
Monday 7/26
Guess what... It's already Week 3! I hope you had a good night's sleep and are fully awake, because this morning we began with Angela Santillo, who taught us about Story Writing. As you may have figured, I love to write. Starting off the week with this workshop was energizing to say the least. Well, why exactly is storytelling important? All of our lives, experiences, and memories are stories. Storytelling is a way of connecting people and communicating, which dates back to the beginning of mankind. After an amazing introduction, Angela taught us about Dramatic Storytelling through the example of the Wizard of Oz. Personally, the Lion was always my favorite character in the story. We learned about how stories are formatted: the main character, action (or tornado), the obstacle, conflict, and finally, the ending. After we fully understood what makes a story actually a story, we brainstormed about different stories to categorize as tragic or comedic. For example, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. I had so much fun with Angela, she is so charismatic, even at 10 am! Next, Lisanne took over for the second workshop. She taught us about Quipu before guiding us through a new project. What exactly is Quipu? Quipu are knotted string devices used for record keeping and communication by the Inca empire. As you may know, the Inca empire stretched from Ecuador all the way to Argentina between 1400 and 1532. South American empires are one of my favorite topics in world history as my heritage is Colombian. I had never heard of Quipu...
The STEAM City of Women - Week 2
Sofia
July 24, 2021
Monday 7/19
Lights camera action! To start off our Monday of week 2, we focused on film. Mariella Pérez Pérez gave us an informative 2-hour workshop on video making and editing, with the major focus on interviews. We’ve all seen interviews before, whether it’s from reminiscing One Direction or Timothee Chalamet on Jimmy Kimmel. Now, it’s our turn to know what makes these interviews so fantastic. She taught us about angles, the importance of different camera shots, and direction. Film in fact has many similarities to theater, as our counselor Allex can definitely confirm. It was great to see so many creative people, from those asking questions to those sharing their craft, which today was Mariella!
Tuesday 7/20
Zzzzz Goodmorning. Feeling a little tired this morning? Well today’s presentation is just for you: Espresso Yourself by Leah Dantin! On this Tuesday, Leah taught us a thing or two on finances and making smart decisions with money. She also taught us the importance of research, which was one of the fundamental ways she decided to buy an espresso machine rather than pay for coffee every day! What are words that come to mind when you think about money? For the participants words like loans, debit, income and outcome, investment, and debt came to mind. Now to really get into basic finances...
The STEAM City of Women - Week 1
Sofia
July 18, 2021
Hi! I am Sofia, the new blogger for EDsnaps. It is my pleasure to be documenting such
wonderful events this summer. I can’t wait for you to join me through this journey.
This summer, EDsnaps is offering a 6-week daily free summer program: “The STEAM City of Women” to female-identifying students. Due to the after effects of the pandemic, students, counselors, visitors, and speakers meet through Zoom from 10-12 noon EST. Students learn some of the most valuable tools and lessons of STEM while having fun and being creative. With the support from Dr.C and the counselors, this is going to be an amazing summer for us all!
Monday 7/12
Happy Monday STEAMers! Today was the kickoff for the 2021 EDsnaps summer! We had a lovely introduction from the fabulous Dr. C. Rules can sometimes be very scary, but not Dr. C’s. Her rules are simple and encouraging, with the aim to make our experience as best as possible. After she broke down the program for all the participants, the counselors introduced themselves. Their enthusiasm and excitement was evident during their little greetings. One of the counselors is even younger than me; talk about impressive and inspiring! The spotlight was then on us. Through a quick icebreaker...
Summer 2020
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - LAST DAYS
Ami Konate
August 23, 2020
Happy Monday! On Monday, the EDsnaps students worked in a specialized mini-workshop with Dr. C to become more comfortable with financial management. Dr. C’s workshop went into a slower and in-depth explanation of basic financial well-being and we even did a little exercise together. This workshop pushed me to look into my own financial life and I realized that I paid more attention to the money that’s coming in (income) and less attention to the money that is going out (expenses). I also realized that I need to start paying more attention when it comes to buying items that I want versus items that I need, as this is one way I can save money and at the same time not regret buying things I do not need afterwards.
Tool Tuesday? I’d say it’s more like an emotional Tuesday. As you know, Tuesday marked the last day of the 2020 STEAM Internship Program for Leaders and I didn’t even know how to feel about it at first. Judges, family members, and friends showed up as the EDsnaps students wrapped up their last day. Judges were told to provide “Dolphin Tank” comments based on the students’ and counselors' final video presentations. Our assignment was to show what we have learned and done during this 8-week daily program and who we are as a person in a video. The comments were remarkable! And it made me feel so proud and honored to be in such a powerful...
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 8
Ami Konate
August 16, 2020
Welcome to the last full week of our program. Yeah, I said last full week, I can’t believe it’s already week 8! Let me go through what we did this week. Lego Monday!! Alice Finch came to e-visit us all the way from the west coast. Our e-counselor, Destiny, interviewed Alice. Surprisingly, Alice and I had a lot in common; just like me, she likes rain, things that turn green, and snow once in a while. The time flew by and I was astonished to learn later on that Destiny’s interview time did not exceed Hawa’s, so Hawa still tops the interview chart, with Destiny ending second. As Mariella Pérez Pérez was not an e-counselor nor a student, her interview time didn’t actually count. Alice’s amazing work with Legos is breathtaking. When I saw her Lego artwork of Berk from “How to Train Your Dragon”, I was like what??? How long did that take? And just how did she do that? Obviously, Alice is passionate about what she does. Alice's mission to increase diversity and equity in the Lego ecosystem of women and people of color made me really happy because my little brother really really loves Legos and at this stage, they are not aware of the race, ethnicity and gender roles but the idea that they would see more of themselves in the Lego ecosystem (including movies) makes me happy.
On Tuesday, Katelyn Serpe taught the EDsnaps STEAM Internship...
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 7
Ami Konate
August 9, 2020
Welcome back to week 7 of our program! Tthis week has been very intense, but still very engaging and exciting. nonetheless very engaging. On Monday, we went into the dazzling world of “Math and Art” with Destiny, one of our e-counselors. Destiny’s workshop Math: “The Ultimate Poetry” was a big learning experience for me. I’ll admit I am not a big fan of math, however , math combined with poetry and math is really interesting. We learned about Leonardo Da Vinci, whom Destiny described as a man ahead of his time., I first learned about Da Vinci from my Art class based on his painting of Mona Lisa. You will notice the connections with Marcela’s photography presentation. We divided into groups and had 10 minutes to create our own ideal space while thinking like an engineer. As always, each group came up with their own different unique ideas and presented about it. After each the presentations, we learned about the Fibonacci sequence which is a series of numbers, and the golden ratio, and their connection to STEAM. T, then we wrapped up by learning more about Destiny and her love for STEAM and her determination to make other’s lives cheerful.
Tools Tuesday? More like remarkable Tuesday!, Do you know that you are remarkable? If you...
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 6
Ami Konate
August 2, 2020
What time is it? It’s Blogging Time! Welcome back to week 6 of our program! Remember last week when I said that I realized Hawa broke a record of a nearly 53-minute interview with Lesley and that her record would be hard to beat? Turns out I spoke too soon. On Monday, Mariella Pérez Pérez visited the EDsnaps team once again but this time to interview Dr. C! One thing I really loved about the whole interview is that both Mariella and Dr. C were very prepared: both were on time, demonstrated a good dress code, made eye contact, and listened to what the other person was saying. Back to what I was saying about Hawa’s record being broken, Mariella’s interview with Dr. C lasted for a whole hour! Now that will be hard to top. This interview was important because the students got to learn more about Dr. C’s career pathway, her research with a zebra finches, and even some of her early childhood memories. After Dr. C’s interview with Mariella, we moved to a presentation with Dr. C about “The Brain on Nicotine”. Listening to Dr. C talk about the brain and the effect that nicotine has on it brought back memories of when I was taking a class in my sophomore year called Alcohol, Drugs, and Behavior. It’s one of those topics where you don’t want to miss a single slide, and you take so many notes because everything that's being said is so new, important, and educational. Due to our lack of timing and the importance of this subject, Dr. C left the rest of the presentation for Thursday.
Did you know your phone is just as capable of taking as many good pictures as a professional...
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 5
Ami Konate
July 26, 2020
What an awesome week! On Monday, we welcomed Oluremi Hidad, an electronic/electrical engineer who knows all about sustainability and solar energy and who called in all the way from Nigeria. Dr. C started our morning off by interviewing Oluremi to learn more about her. Something that Oluremi said that stuck with me was that she used to struggle to study in the evenings because there was no electricity and the lamp that was available was not enough to work on her homework with. This sounded very familiar, as I went through the same situation when I was back home in Guinea; the electricity system was horrible, and I remember imagining how it would feel to be able to work with light sources that run all the time. Some advice from Oluremi that I believe everyone should follow is “you have to be smart, not smart like intelligent wise, smart like passionate, and go after what you want.” She continued later on by saying “you need a mentor, you need to do research, you need to start; don’t wait to start until you have all the resources you need to get started, start in your bedroom, start with an idea and work hard, you need to start as soon as you can.” I thought that advice was really brilliant and if many follow this rule, the world would be amazing. Did you know that the average hours of sunlight per year in NYC is 2535 and in Nigeria is 2672? Me neither! Using this information after Dr. C’s interview with Oluremi, we split into breakout rooms and brainstormed a new solar energy system that would improve the quality of life both for youth in NYC and Nigeria. We only had...
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 4
Ami Konate
July 19, 2020
It’s Monday 7/13, 10 am EST; welcome back to the fourth week of our EDsnaps STEAM Internship Program for Leaders! This Monday, our Women of Impact visitors were two polar explorers: Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen. Thoraya, one of our students, was responsible for the amazing interview with Liv Arnesen. Liv, who grew up and lives in Norway, stated that her dream of skiing the South Pole started when reading a book from her school library when she was only 9 years old! Imagine how many people's dreams could start with a book if we encouraged reading from a young age? The first time I read a book was when I was in middle school and after reading that first book, I wish I had learned about reading much sooner. One of my favorite take-aways from Liv’s story was that if you meet someone or read about something that makes your heartbeat go a little faster or makes the blood run faster in your veins that is something important to you. It doesn’t matter if your friends or family don’t like it, you just do it. The best way to do this is turn off your phone or just have a walk in the park or forest. Djeneba, another one of our students, interviewed Ann and what I took away from that interview is to not take yourself too seriously and laugh with each other because that will help you remember the joy of what you are doing. Liv and Ann showed us many pictures of the journey and shared many inspiring stories of true friendship.
Tool Tuesday! I’ve never been a fan of Tuesdays, but after Lisanne van Engelen, the EDsnaps Project Manager, taught us how to use ArcGIS, I am looking forward to every Tuesday. Geographic Information Systems...
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 3
Ami Konate
July 12, 2020
Time really does fly when you're having fun, I can’t believe we are already in week 3! On Monday 7/6 the EDsnaps STEAM Internship Program for Leaders welcomed Susanne Mueller, aka The Iron Woman. Why is she called The Iron Woman? Well, she speaks five languages and she completed the Ironman Triathlon 5 years ago, which we learned consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, and a marathon of a 26.22-mile run, all in one day! Susanne feels strong about women's empowerment and leadership which is why she titled her book “Take it from the Iron Woman”. We started the morning off with Grace, one of our students, interviewing Susanne and from that interview, we learned that preparation is key, and “if you are early you're on time, if you're on time you are late.” What a powerful quote, right? During the workshop, we split into groups and participated in the Game of Cones; no, not ice cream cones, traffic/training cones. The Game of Cones is all about strategy, team building, and STEPS (Training, Evaluation, Planning and Execution, and Success). Working as a team has never been more enjoyable.
Then, on Tuesday we met Angela Santillo, a storyteller, researcher, and writer. Angela demonstrated how to tell a dramatic story by using a five-step division: a character, an incident, action, an obstacle, and a conflict. Letting your research “talk” to you is important because it will lead you to more questions. We also learned about the simplicity of the rule of 3: our brain loves the number three because we remember information better that way.
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 2
Ami Konate
July 5, 2020
Monday 6/29, 10 am EST: Welcome to the second week of our program!! This morning, I had the pleasure of interviewing Elena Abou Mrad, my selected present “Woman of Impact”. Elena is an archivist, a storyteller, and a blogger, just like me. I wanted my interview to be a relaxed and enjoyable experience, so I started off by asking Elena some basic questions about how she was feeling and what she does. At the end I wanted to hear some advice that she has for a new and curious blogger (like myself). One advice that I will remember forever is when she said to “always be yourself”. I like this quote because I feel like it’s so simple yet many fail to follow it. After the interview, Elena gave an incredible workshop on “Digital Humanities''. Digital humanities is a field of study and research that intersects with humanities. We learned that there are so many creative things you can do with maps. During the breakout session, we teamed up, selected one of our favorite books, and made a graph out of it! Hearing other teams present their graph and book was even more exciting.
On Tuesday we once again welcomed Carol Colmenares. Carol worked with us on “Digital Media.” We talked about media which are communication tools we use to store and deliver information in the form of text and/or data. Examples of some media are Facebook, TV, radio, music, and even newspapers. The main...
THE STEAM INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR LEADERS - WEEK 1
June 28, 2020
The EDsnaps STEAM Internship Program for Leaders is a program offered to female-identifying
high school students that runs on a daily basis from 10-12 noon. Due to the pandemic, students, counselors, visitors, and speakers meet through Zoom where they learn valuable tools and lessons for their personal and professional lives. The goal of the program is to expand students' professional and personal experience and value.
My name is Ami Konate and I am an e-Counselor in this program. In 2017, I started as a rising college-student in the EDsnaps Program. I have been working with EDsnaps since then and I am currently part of the 2020 Internship Program where I work as an e-Counselor. The thought of being a counselor online seemed a bit strange to me at first but if I can describe it in one word, it would be FUN. I’ll be writing these weekly recap blogs to take you along with us for this exciting journey!
Wednesday 6/24, 10 am EST: The wait is finally over! Dr. Susanne Cappendijk (aka Dr. C) launched the STEAM Internship Program for Leaders with the theme “Turning Overlooked Into Looked In: Past, Present, and Future Women of Impact”. The program started with the future women, counselors and students, introducing...