STEAM Program Remote Laboratories for Science Education

Students struggle with Science assignments due to a lack of proper training and misconceptions derived from only having experiences related to solving exercises in books, which are not always contextualized and can be out of date.

Students share outdated equipment around a large table in academic settings, and experimental processes are restricted to a few students sharing with other students, preventing a full experimental experience, particularly in K-12 levels and the first years of undergraduate programs.

Students lack the necessary training, skills, and knowledge to advance further in STEM-related career paths, limiting their opportunities and development conditions in the long run and negatively impacting the region. This is also due to poverty, migration, and a lack of opportunities, whereas students with better training and skills have better opportunities and are able to better their own, their families', and their communities' lives.

We put several synchronous and asyncronous experiences to the test. We have designed the preliminary stages of a remote operation laboratory, which will allow students to take measurements, plan, design, and build remote experiences to test fundamental scientific concepts and thus expand their knowledge and skills.

Rather than purchasing a large amount of equipment that will quickly become obsolete, damaged, or lost, we want to maintain a remote operational laboratory that will extend hours of operation and allow students to experiment at their own pace while gaining valuable training and skills.

The solution will benefit students in grades K-12, particularly those in their final years of high school and undergraduate students. They must share equipment, frequently in groups of ten or more students, with a single piece of equipment. Over 4,000,000 students in the region do not have access to appropriate experimental settings. We will first offer the program to low-income students in order to provide them with an opportunity that most schools do not have due to financial constraints, as public schools do not have any laboratory equipment of any kind.

We will support students who do not have adequate connectivity in gaining access to these experiences.

The STEAM program is a dynamic program that adapts to the needs and requirements of the students. We try to keep the program as an outreach/extracurricular effort so that students can participate, ask questions, and request activities and content. For over 20 years, we have been exploring and researching science education in the region in order to motivate students to pursue further STEM-oriented career paths.

Our team, a binational team working regionally has the experience of the STEAM Conferences Guatemala, providing over 2,000 students at once, meaningful experiences with over 20 different workshops simultaneously thanks to the kind support of the US Embassy Guatemala. 

Our Academic Coordinator has published over 20 books for the general public and undergraduate students, and she has worked with teachers to improve children's education. 

We are looking for funding to purchase the necessary equipment upgrades to establish a successful remotely operated laboratory. Our efforts to provide remote experiences currently lack the necessary equipment for students to fully control the equipment.

The support could be in equipment, materials or strategic alliances that will enable us to move closer to our goal.

Traditional educational settings frequently seek to have students share equipment in regular classes. During the pandemic, it was clear that students needed to be able to conduct their own experiments in schools or at home. Students could lead their own experimental processes guided by scientists from anywhere in the world with proper training, thus improving their educational experience. 

During the 2022/2023 cycle, we hope to be able to design a regional remote laboratory that could be run from Guatemala or Mexico, with scientists and trainees on hand to assist students with the initial experimental techniques. 

In five years, by 2027, we hope to have at least three remotely operated laboratories, with expanded facilities such as makerspaces, allowing students to create commercially viable innovations that will help them advance their careers and put concepts to the test, while also creating and innovating on their own.

We have established delivery goals for STEAM kits (as of now, about 4,000 kits have been delivered thanks to kind support of US EMbassy in Guatemala)

We reached over 960,000 people through our online seminars, and while our goal was to reach 1,000,000 people in 18 months, we did it in 20.

We have reached over 7,000 teachers in the Mexico/Guatemala region, and we hope to train over 3,000 more.

This will help to advance the 2030 agenda in education while also promoting quality education, one of the SDGoals, and achieving gender equality. Over 48% of participants identify as female, 51% as male, and 1% as other, implying that we have created a safe environment in which to participate without fear of discrimination of any kind.

We aim to bring science to students, rather than the other way around, to demonstrate how scientific principles can help students develop critical thinking and valuable skills that can be applied across multiple areas of knowledge. This critical skill provides participants with insights and assists them in developing their own entrepreneurial developments, allowing them to advance in their social mobility.

We want them to see scientific training as a valuable ally and a powerful tool for changing their circumstances.

Over 17 million cell phones are active in Guatemala alone, and while some sectors of society lack proper connectivity and access to computers and tablets, they do have access to smartphones. During the pandemic, smartphones were critical in allowing students to continue their education from anywhere in the country.

We want to use the technology and access that are already in the hands of many students who do not have proper access to education to improve the quality of the content they receive. Some students face difficulties getting to schools in rural areas, especially during the rainy season; however, phone access via smartapps could be used to access these contents. We used social media to deliver quality content during the pandemic because it is less expensive than Broadband.

We seek to establish a remote operation that will enable them to get better training and knowledge, one student at a time.

Our TEAM Leads Magdalena Waleska Aldana Segura (she/her/hers) and our Academic Coordinator Julian Felix Valdez (he/him/his) make up our lead governance. Our volunteer and staff pool is typically composed of 60% women (teachers and teachers-in-training), and trainees are encouraged to participate on an equal basis. There will be no discrimination based on genre, race, or any other factor. We are working to make the environment more accessible to hearing-impaired participants; several participants with visual and hearing impairments were able to participate successfully.

Our STEAM kits, which are actually provided free of charge, range in price from $100.00 to $500.00 USD. We are looking for grants and funding to provide them with these materials. We were able to do so thanks to grants from both the private and public sectors. The US Embassy in Guatemala is our largest contributor.

This grant covers the costs of workshops, conferences, and participation in international conferences for children. In the long run, we hope to provide paid workshops to help underprivileged children finance their experience.

We are seeking funding to help us launch the project by offering paid workshops to help fund the free access activities.

Furthermore, our laboratory is currently working on several patentable designs that will help fund our projects.

We have made our project visible and established credibility among participants who will serve as our spokesperson. In the long run, we hope to have schools participate in the program and help us fund the next stage. We have been unable to do so due to the financial hardships endured by students and schools during the pandemic.