Small Computers Make a Big Impact in Jackson Heights
When Ron Callahan started teaching local kids to code four years ago, he did it from his basement in Jackson Heights. Now, he does it from a local preschool, the walls dotted with finger paintings and posters promoting diversity. The kids line up at computers in the middle of the room. The oldest student is eleven, the youngest, seven.
Callahan founded Raspberry Heights in 2013, a weekly workshop dedicated to teaching children about science, technology, engineering and math. Callahan uses Raspberry Pi technology, small computers that he first introduced to his daughter in order to teach her STEM skills.
“She immediately fell in love with these little computers,” said Callahan. “It’s a great educational tool. I used it to teach her a little bit more about technology and programming.”
In recent years, the jobs in STEM fields are growing at an exponential rate, moving educators to teach the skills that could get students jobs in the not-so-distant future.
Margaret Käufer, President of STEM Alliance of Larchmont-Mamaroneck, says educators are now focusing on diversifying STEM fields. According to a 2013 report based on the American Community Survey from 2011, STEM fields are still overwhelmingly white. Often, jobs go to those with advanced degrees. But according to data from the New York City government website, the Jackson Heights community is almost ninety percent non-white, and nearly eighty percent of the residents have no form of higher education.
“They simply need access,” said Käufer. “The vast majority of jobs will be in STEM — both now and in the future.”
Katie Culp, the Chief Learning Officer at the New York Hall of Science, believes access starts with making the information available to different communities.
“The New York Hall of Science is in Corona, in Queens, so our immediate neighborhood is primarily recent immigrant families from Central and South America,” said Culp. “That’s one of the core audiences we serve.”
These sentiments have real life impacts for Callahan’s students, such as program graduate Sarika Israni. Four years ago, Israni gave her Raspberry Pi computer to her younger brother, who fell in love with the technology.
Although she and her family moved to Long Island several years ago, Israni’s parents have come back to Jackson Heights to put her brother through the program. She says that she still uses the skills she developed in the program. Through Raspberry Heights, she learned how to make a video game, which she still plays.
“It was the highlight of my week,” said Israni, who is now in eighth grade. “In school when you do it, it’s more boring because you have to do so many things and it’s all directive and it’s essays and all that. Here, it’s kind of hands-on and it’s very interactive and I like that.”
The majority of jobs in STEM also go to men. Nobu Nakaguchi, who works in technology, says his company has a hard time recruiting women. He is the Chief Design Officer and Co-Founder of Zola.com, a wedding registry website.
A Jackson Heights resident, Nakaguchi is now putting his second child through Callahan’s program. In the past four years, the program has churned out about as many female graduates as male.
“Watching the fact that it’s so challenging to find female engineers and having three girls, I thought it would be great to expose them to this process of building through technology, which I think is pretty amazing,” said Nakaguchi.
Whether or not Callahan’s students decide to pursue a career in STEM, the goal is to get students excited about subjects they may not be able to explore extensively outside Raspberry Heights.
“It just takes one spark to start a fire,” said Jake Vaynshteyn, a teacher in the Raspberry Heights program and a Weill Cornell Medicine Technician.
Callahan has also been in contact with different schools in Jackson Heights. He says that many educators hope to implement STEM activities in their programs.
One such educator is Jim Gaines, Director of Upper Division Admissions and Outreach at the Garden School. The school’s radio club is one way to offer a STEM education outside the classroom. Students in the radio club learn morse code, how to build circuits and how to operate a ham radio. Gaines, like Callahan, sees the value in fun STEM education for kids.
“Science offers a great venue for creative and critical thinking skills,” said Gaines. “That is, ultimately, our goal.”
