At a STEM Mentoring Café, we recruit 5th through 8th grade students and their teachers to spend a few hours engaged in quick show-and-tell chats with federal employees in STEM careers and private sector STEM professionals, hosted at volunteer sites throughout the country.We are especially interested in reaching girls and female STEM professionals, to combat their underrepresentation in STEM. However, this program is available to all interested students and STEM professionals.
The STEM professionals move from table to table to share how they got their start in STEM, what interests them the most about their job, what exciting projects they have currently, and why STEM matters to our society. Teachers are given take-home material, prepared by the Department of Energy's Education and Workforce Development team, to continue STEM learning in the classroom, and STEM professionals are encouraged to commit to serving an additional 20 hours annually as a mentor to students in their community.
The document below outlines the roles of teachers, students, mentors, and museums on the process to plan, host, and follow up from a STEM Mentoring Café event.
Home page: http://www.energy.gov/diversity/stem-mentoring-caf
