Post 3 - "How Does it Work?"

This seemed to be the theme for my reading this week... How does it work? There were two articles that stuck out for me this week. The first one "Lowell-Based Kids In Tech Expands STEM Opportunities" explored how a group called "Kis in Tech", a group focused on helping kids from low-income backgrounds expand their knowledge of math and science, received a large grant to expand their services for STEM week which just wrapped up this week. "Kids in Tech" was started in 2016 with a focus on ensuring that kids from low-income backgrounds have an opportunity to work and learn using STEM. The article was interesting, but it was the last paragraph that most intrigued me. Because of COVID-19, STEM week was held virtually. Students met online with experts from different tech companies - one company in particular was iRobot. Some employees from iRobot were interested in talking with and working with students who come from immigrant backgrounds since they, themselves had a similar background. And here's why the article caught my attention - recently, I completed some work on developing a STEAM Lab for one of my courses. Our ELL students benefit from more opportunities that STEM and STEAM Labs have to offer. Students collaborte, create, use critical thinking, and communication skills to work with others to solve problems. "Kids for Learning" was fortunate to have talented grant writers that were able to get them selected for the STEM Week. If we could get more companies and corporations to connect employees with immigrant or language learning backgrounds to students the impact could be huge. All students need role models, inspiration, and guides. The second article I read that had me thinking "How Does It Work?" was an article about the benefits of learning a second language. The article is called "Bilingualism Boosts the Brain". This is something that I've been thinking about for a few years. One of the schools that I work in had a Spanish Immersion program. The young students (1st - 4th grade) were not only participating with the grade-level curriculum, but they were also learning Spanish at the same time. The article surmises that people who learn a second language are engaging a separate "thinking" part of the brain that will help the brain to stay active. The article suggests that brain lapses such as dimensia or diseases of the brain such as alzheimers, can be delayed when a second language is studied and mastered. It is suggested in the article that when a new learned language is spoken, the brain works harder to select the right words - it doesn't seem to work as hard for one language. There are a lot of European, Asian, and African countries that ensure that their students speak more than one language. Our country does not have that requirement and it seems to me that if we had this requirement in our school curriculum that we would accomplish two things: 1. more global connection 2. more diverse language culture. Both of these articles had me thinking about connecting language to learning - how can we connect more people together and how can we use language learning to stimulate our brains? So... how does it work?