About Us
Planting seeds in STEM at an early age
Our Mission
To help future generations and the underrepresented, and bring more diversity in majors and work fields involving STEM and Computer Science.
To work to help provide underrepresented communities equal opportunities to learn about STEM
To shed light on facets of science and engineering often overlooked when introducing high school students to STEM fields, primarily in underserved communities and district
What does STEM education for everyone mean to us?
We believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity with STEM education. From research we have observed how underrepresented and more diverse communities have a lack of STEM education compared to other communities due to a long history of exclusions. We want to take a step to change that by offering this education to those communities. By starting at an early age, we can encourage students to pursue STEM careers to bring equality and diversity in the work field.
Roots of the Program
The program began as a senior project at Cal Poly SLO by a student, Emily Anderson, who had a passion to help underrepresented communities. She founded the program with a different handbook based off of her experience running the program. After she graduated, three other Cal Poly students (Louisa, Stephanie, and Aurable) took the project as a Senior Project. After researching more they decided to change the program beyond the original scope. Cami Asher later continued the project on more for her Senior Project. For more on the history of this project visit our history page.
We noticed the need for more STEM education programs in the community of Santa Maria. We have seen through a few programs run the difference it makes to young individuals. Every time we run the program we seen how we can improve it to better help the community.
We have been supported and encouraged by many great individuals at Cal Poly SLO and community members. Due to everyone’s help we have been able to get the programming running.
We all have a passion to help the future generations especially in STEM education. We hope that our program can create a long term difference in students and the community. We hope it unites the communities as well.
Leadership
Project Leads 2021-2022
Jehlia Kalinnez Arriola
Melina Lopez
Nishanth Narayan
David Gillette
Co-Director, Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies Program (LAES)
Project Leads 2020-2021
Cami Asher
Zen Tran
Alessandra Garnder
Project Leads 2018-2019
Emily Anderson
Cal Poly Advisors
Michael Haungs
Co-Director, Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies Program (LAES)
Project Leads 2019-2020
Aurabel Sandoc
Louisa Nickerson
Stephanie Carpintero-Flores
Matthew Harsh
Director, Center for Expressive Technologies (CET)
Contact Us
Seeds in STEM
Seeds in STEM Office
seedsinstem@gmail.com
Instagram: @seedsinstem
TRIO UB
TRIO Upward Bound
805-756-5128
upwardbound@calpoly.edu
Cal Poly LAES Office
Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies Program Office
(805) 756-1132
laes@calpoly.edu
TRIO ETS
TRIO Educational Talent Search
805-756-6208
ets@calpoly.edu
Cal Poly CET
Center for Expressive Technologies Office
cet@calpoly.edu