Camden Butler, who is nine and a half years old, remembers his time with BrightPath STEAM Academy — a virtual summer program for Black students who want to learn about science, technology, engineering, art, and math — extremely well.
On the day of the academy in mid-July, Butler remembers, he was “allowed to get messy in the house.” By ‘getting messy,’ Butler meant conducting an experiment to learn about viral load dispersal and COVID-19—which involved spraying water on a flour-covered balloon to simulate a sneeze and learn why staying six feet apart is so important.
Butler also got the chance to meet medical professionals and ask them all his questions about the virus that changed his young life so drastically. “We got to meet an actual doctor!” he said. “And he was telling us about…working on the COVID-19 vaccine, and how we can stay safe from getting the COVID.”
By “getting messy,” Butler was able to learn not only about the virus, but about the people fighting it and the science behind it. “It’s not 2019, and we can’t just go up to random people,” he said.
The BrightPath summer program, which drew 120 students from 13 states last summer, aims to teach young people how to become “STEAMers,” igniting their curiosity about science. It is the brainchild of Marcia Brown-Rayford, VP of life sciences and clinical trials at RGP Healthcare. Brown-Rayford has worked in pharmaceuticals development for decades, working on projects such as HIV medication and HeartGard for dogs — and, most recently and pertinently, has worked as a coronavirus researcher.
“I just relocated back to St. Louis from Atlanta to help bridge the STEAM education gap among African Americans in the St. Louis Community. This is my hometown, and all my family’s here.”
Along with youth education specialist Shanell Lee, Brown-Rayford constructed educational sessions on topics like COVID-19 and robotics for BrightPath students. This upcoming summer, BrightPath — through a partnership with Washington University— will continue offering summer educational programs to students from elementary through high school. This year, they are hoping to offer learning activities around artificial intelligence, along with their previous offerings of robotics and epidemiology.
Many of those students, like Belleville West junior Chauncey Hayworth and Barnwell Middle School student Micayla Clark, continue to access internships and mentorship through the program long after the summer has ended. This past February, Hayworth and Clark were the first hosts of the “BrightPath STEAM Academy Internet Radio Program,” where the two young people conducted a Black History trivia session with a cash prize — and sharpened their skills at interviewing Black STEM workers such as engineers and researchers.
Of learning to host a radio program, 14-year-old Clark said, “It was really nerve-wracking. But once I got used to it, it was like oh, okay!” Although reading in front of so many people made Clark “nervous,” she has a clear, bright voice that seems perfectly suited for radio.
On the internet radio program, Clark and Hayworth interviewed Brown-Rayford about how she got her start in scientific inquiry.
“How did you know you were a STEAMer?” Hayworth asked her.
Brown-Rayford replied that she’d known since she was four years old.
“It intrigued me how the world worked,” she recalled. “I wanted to know what caused the sun to stand in its place, what caused the moon to be positioned with no chains, no pulleys, nothing visible that would…cause it to stay in the sky.”
Through BrightPath, she hopes to bring that spirit of questioning to other young Black people, and she collaborates with those same students on the programming. Chauncey Hayworth, for example, didn’t just attend July’s summer program — he also helped run one of the sessions, directing his fellow students to make TikToks about their scientific knowledge. And through BrightPath, he’ll be attending a program at Princeton University, his dream school, this summer.
Shanell Lee said that much of the program’s inspiration comes from the students themselves—like the TikTok competition. “They’re just always running over with ideas, so oftentimes I just bring those ideas to the table.”
In the end, even over Zoom, “kids love to learn…especially when they can get their hands dirty and get in there,” she said. “Like Camden…he was so excited about getting dirty, and not getting in trouble for being dirty!”
Parents and guardians interested in signing their children up for BrightPath’s 2021 summer program can visit brightpathsteam.org, and fill out the interest form on the website.
