This month we celebrate Black History Month. Here at The STEAM Generation, diversity is at the core of our values and we wanted to take this opportunity to share some inspiring stories of individuals of African descent. These 10 people were only a select few of all the people who are doing incredible work in STEAM – and we really hope their stories inspire you just as much as us!
1. GLADYS MAE WEST (1930-) Gladys Mae West is an American mathematician. Her calculations and programming were vital in constructing a mathematical model of the earth’s shape, a geoid. Her work was vital in the construction of today’s GPS system.
2. DR. EVELYN BOYD GRANVILLE (1924-) Dr. Evelyn Boyd Granville was the second African-American woman in U.S. history to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics. Dr. Granville went on to work at IBM where she created computer software that analyzed satellite orbits for NASA space programs. She has been a fierce advocate for STEM education.
3. BESSIE COLEMAN (1892 – 1926) After Bessie Coleman was rejected from learning how to fly in America due to her race, she didn’t give up. She taught herself French and moved to France where she earned her pilot’s license in only 7 months. Coleman was the first black woman to fly an airplane.
4. CALEB ANDERSON (2009-) Caleb Anderson is the youngest student at Georgia Tech, majoring in Aerospace engineering at only 13 years old. He qualified for MENSA at the age of just 3, an organisation that recognizes people with an IQ in the top 2% of the world! He began mimicking his mother’s speech at just 4 weeks old and was reading the constitution by the age of 2!
5. MARIAN CROAK (1955-) Marian Croak is the Vice President of engineering at Google. She is most known for developing the Voice Over Internet Protocol, turning your voice or video into a digital signal so you can talk through the internet allowing people from all over the world to communicate in real-time. This technology is used nowadays more than ever through companies such as Zoom. She currently holds over 200 patents in the VOIP field.
6. LONNIE JOHNSON (1949-) Lonnie Johnson was an Air Force and NASA engineer. Though whilst preparing for a NASA mission, Lonnie was inspired to create what would later become the Super Soaker water gun. From building a go-kart engine as a kid to a robot as a teen, Lonnie went on to join the Air Force and secured his first patent. He later joined NASA and worked as part of the Galileo mission which led to the inspiration behind the Super Soaker which went on to be released in 1990 originally called the Power Drencher.
7. GARRETT MORGAN (1877 – 1963) Garrett Morgan patented the first traffic signal in the United States in 1923 after witnessing a car crash. He also invented the life-saving device, smoke safety hoods used by firemen which later developed into gas masks used in WW1. His other inventions and patents also include a hair-straightening device and an improved sewing machine.
8. PATRICIA BATH (1942 – 2019) Patricia Bath was an ophthalmologist and laser scientist. She is the inventor of laser cataract surgery which helps to restore and improve patients’ vision, called the Laserphaco Probe. She was also the first black woman to patent a medical device.
9. MARIE VAN BRITTAN BROWN (1922 – 1999) Marie Van Brittan Brown was a nurse and an inventor. Along with her husband Albert Brown, an electronics technician, she invented the home security system in 1966. Marie and Albert’s system was the first that would alert the homeowner and contact authorities quickly. This invention would later lead to the development of CCTV and help create a safer society.
10. NZAMBI MATEE (1992-) Nzambi Matee founded Gjenge Makers. She found a way of turning plastic waste in Kenya into bricks stronger than concrete with a mission to create more housing. She was named a young champion of the Earth 2020 Africa winner at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Have you heard of Python coding or ever wondered what language is most useful for your child or teen to learn? Either at school or even to set them up for their future, be it at university or later on in their career – or even as a hobby? Python is one of the most popular languages in both industry, research, and many other creative fields and is an incredibly fantastic and easy language to get started with! In addition to this, Python is taught at the University, so learning Python early on will give you a head start academically and in your projects! Read on to find out why and how learning Python today can help your child!
WHAT IS PYTHON PROGRAMMING?
Python is a software language, which means developers use it to make programs! A program is a set of instructions given to a computer to complete a task. Python is very special, as it is what we call an ‘interpreted’, ‘object-oriented’, ‘high level’ programming language. Don’t worry – read on to find out just how cool python is!
So Python is the language that we (humans) write to tell the computer what to do. But computers don’t actually ‘speak’ Python. Computers only read in 0s and 1s, literally meaning on and off. On and Off commands are made by something called a transistor, the thing that physically turns a switch on and off. So if computers only speak in 0s and 1s, how do we communicate with them?
Binary code is what we use call combinations of 1s and 0s, where each digit represents one transistor. Binary code is grouped into ‘bytes’, made up of 8 ‘bits’, which reflect 8 transistors in the computer. We can make human words with binary code, for example, “hello” in binary code is: 0110100001100101011011000110110001101111. Modern computers contain billions of transistors to process this information! But imagine the number of 0s and 1s we would have to type in if we just wanted to have a simple conversation!
WHY SHOULD MY CHILD LEARN PYTHON?
Imagine trying to understand this!
That would be a very very long and boring job!
This is where programming languages like Python become very useful!
What we do is we have ‘human-friendly’ languages, which we code in, like Python! This is then translated into binary code for our computer to understand and execute.
The code inside a Python program is called the source code. But, how does the computer translate our source code into the 0s and 1s that it understands?
There are 3 steps!
The source code is translated into assembly language.
The assembly code is translated into machine language.
The machine language is directly executed as binary code.
Assembly language is a very low-level language, which uses predefined words and numbers to represent binary patterns (our 0s and 1s). This looks much more like computer language and is really hard for us humans to understand!
Low or High-level languages just refers to how ‘far away’ the language is from binary code (0s and 1s). For example, a low-level language would look very much like binary code, but is more difficult for us humans to read and interpret! High-level languages, like Python, are designed to be much nicer for us humans to understand, and they make talking to the computer much easier.
So, our Python code must first be translated from its source code into assembly language. It does this using an ‘interpreter’. Python is an interpreted language, meaning the interpreter translates the source code, reading and executing the code line by line. The other way to do this is to ‘compile’ the whole program in one go, which happens in a compiled language like C++. The assembly code is then sent to be converted into the machine language, which the computer can understand and execute directly as binary code.
LEARN PYTHON CODING AT THE STEAM GENERATION
Whether you’re a beginner or wanting to dive deeper into your Python knowledge and skills, we have courses to build your child skills.
For awhile now, we have known that STEM education offers students numerous advantages. STEM jobs grow every year by the millions. What we didn’t know was just how much value the Art have to offer STEM students. The effects of the Arts in education go far beyond just giving children a well-rounded experience. Universities are now realizing that by rejecting the false dichotomy between STEM and Art Integration, they can produce better prepared STEM graduates.
STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art Integration, and Mathematics. STEAM advocates want to incorporate STEM into the Arts in three ways:
Make Art part of K-12 Education
Include Art and Design in STEM learning
Persuade employers to hire designers and artists who will drive innovation
The idea is that the arts contribute better education outcomes and the economy at large.
How Art Integration make STEM Better
The advantages of studying Art start much earlier. Researchers have observed that SAT scores are 98 points higher in students who studied Art for four years. This means that studying Art has a positive effect on overall academic performance. Not only does studying Art improve overall academic performance, it also improves verbal skills, math, and even school attendances.
Also, at a time when entrepreneurship is so admired, childhood exposure to the Arts made artists eight times more likely to establish a successful startup or register a patent. This means that exposing students to the Arts makes it more likely for the STEM graduates to drive innovation in the marketplace. A STEM education without sufficient exposure to the Arts denies students a well-rounded education.
Why STEAM is Essential
Training in the Arts improves interpretive skills. These are essential skills that help students to gather information, understand it, and draw conclusions from it. A combination of STEM and Arts in teaching has the potential to deliver a deeper learning experience for students.
Students who are exposed to the Arts develop improved problem solving and critical thinking skills, more innovation and creativity, better social skills, and improved flexibility as well as adaptability. Incorporating the Arts in STEM programs may have a positive impact on degree retention. Today, 60% of STEM graduates change their minds about completing the STEM program. The situation is made worse by the fact that only a quarter of high school students are interested in pursuing a STEM degree in the first place. A well-rounded learning experience makes learners more motivated and in turn improves school attendance and academic performance. This means that by keeping the Arts in school from K-12, the quality of education overall improves. The main premise of STEAM is that the Arts and STEM are not opposed but rather complementary.
The STEAM Generation uses it in their curriculum in programs such as video game design which requires both computer coding and digital art assets. By using the engineering design process, students develop skills in storyboarding, character development, environment design, audio/video editing, and user interaction. Participants in the program got a bit of art, engineering, physics, and mathematics, all in one. Can artistic thinking make better engineers and scientists? That is what all the evidence suggests.
Interested in enrolling your child in a STEAM program?
Check out The STEAM Generation – a STEAM enrichment program that provides hands-on classes, camps, and workshops for children 4-14.