STEM GEMS

Activity Planning Template

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Name: Scholars: Amechi N.

Guiding Questions
● Compare this STEM Gem to a typical student in your class. What set the STEM Gem on a
path towards a science career – i.e., what was different about this STEM Gem’s
experiences?
● Which of the experiences and/or attributes listed in the eight “Crystals” chapters at the
end of the book are demonstrated by this STEM Gem’s story?
● What takeaways do you hope your students would get from this STEM Gem’s story?
● How can we support all of our students to have similar experiences or develop similar
attributes? In your classroom, how can you:
o Be an exceptional teacher? Promote exceptional teaching in your school?
(chapter 1)
o Foster/support summer activities for students? (chapter 2)
o Promote students’ curiosity and passion? (chapter 3)
o Help students recognize their talents and interests? Recognize and avoid
stereotypes? Be assertive? (chapter 4)
o Develop students’ work ethic? Support students’ hobbies? (chapter 5)
o Support students’ risk-taking? Help students learn from failure? (chapter 6)
o Develop students’ vision? Provide role models and mentors for students?
(chapter 7)
o Highlight, critique, and resist gender (and other) bias in school, science, and
society? (chapter 8)

STEM Gem Overview

Directions: Complete the following section using information about a “STEM Gem” from the
STEM Gems Book

Career: Computer Scientist and Engineer

What they do includes the following:

• Although similar to an electrical engineer, they focus extensively on computer
applications, like electronics, computer hardware design, microprocessors, software
and operating systems design, embedded systems and microcontrollers,
mechatronics.

Schooling/Certification Requirement(s):
English, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Geometry, Algebra, Calculus and Social Studies are some of the
courses one can take in High School to prepare for this course.

Minimum degree: Bachelors.

Name:
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Barbara Liskov

Key experiences:

• Supportive parents that encouraged academic excellence especially in the field of

Math and Science.
• They encouraged her in her quest though she did not want to travel the ‘traditional’
route common among women of her generation.

Challenges faced:

No challenges mentioned per se.

She did lay emphasis on her not getting intimidated by or to be influenced by people’s
comments or attitudes because she was delving into a male dominated field.

Accomplishments:

• Regarded as one of the first women to earn a PhD in Computer Science in the country.
• She has held a Professorship at MIT since 1972.
• Named Institute Professor at MIT in 1988. (The highest honor awarded to a Faculty
member.)
• Developed the idea of data abstractions. A method of inventing modules or
segmented parts used in building programs.
• Currently working on distributed computing and cloud storage.

STEM Gems Activity for Students Planning Guide

Directions: Find a simple activity for students to engage in to introduce them to this STEM
Gem’s career and/or foster the types of learning experiences that were important for this STEM
Gem. Describe the activity below.

Name of activity:

Ready, Set, Search! Race to the Right Answer .

Adapted from:

Science Buddies Staff. (2014, June 28). Ready, Set, Search! Race to the Right Answer.

Rationale for this activity: Why did you chose this activity? Will it help students learn about
the career of the STEM Gem? Will it address any of the actionable steps from the “Crystals”
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chapters? What do you hope students will get out of this activity?

Computer Engineers focus on Computer applications like electronics, computer hardware

design, software and operating systems design etc. so I have chosen this activity so the
students will have an opportunity to understand what the job of a Computer Engineer
encompasses at their level. It is an activity that would also promote students’ curiosity and
passion and it may help them or their teachers recognize their talents and interests. I am
hopeful that by the time the students are done with this activity, it will help them realize that
the work of a Computer Engineer can comfortably be done by members of both sexes.

Time needed:

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Materials and Equipment:

• Computer with Internet connection

• Lab notebook
• Graph paper or printer

Directions for teachers:

Be sure to prepare a poster board with the tables as outlined to provide the students with a
visual of what the lecture is about.
The search hits are going to be very large numbers. Be sure to adjust and compensate
according to grade level being taught.
Begin the class by introducing the students to the job functions of a Computer Engineer and
ask questions to get a feel of what they know. Sample questions include:
• What/what is a Computer Engineer?
• How can we use Computer Engineering in our everyday activities?

Further information can be given by explaining all or part of the sentences below. Adapt to
level of class being taught.

Do you or your parents ever use the Internet to find answers to questions? Well, whether you
are researching the Queen of England for a school report, or settling a debate with your
brother about the name of the evil witch in Disney's The Little Mermaid (its Ursula by the
way), the information is probably just a click of the mouse away. All you have to do is type
the search terms (or words) into Google (or any other search engine, but for this science fair
project, we'll stick to Google) and presto! Up pop hundreds of web pages with information
about your topic. But have you sometimes gotten way too many results that don't have the
kind of information for which you are looking? Why is that? Doesn't Google know any better?
Unfortunately, the answer is no.
Google is simply a computer program that searches for information, using an algorithm.
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An algorithm is like a formula, it is a set of instructions written for the computer in coded
language that tells it what to do. Let's say you type in a search term in the Google search box,
which could be a word or a phrase that you think best describes the information for which
you're looking. You hit "Enter" and instantly, the Google algorithm is programmed to scan
through digital information all over the Internet, looking for web pages that best match the
search term(s) you typed in. By counting the number of matching search terms found on all of
the pages on the Internet, it gives each page a score. The hits (or results) you see on your
results page are the websites that got the highest scores from the Google algorithm, because
they contained the search terms you entered in the search box.
So how can you get better search results? The answer is by typing in the right search terms.
Because of the way the Google algorithm works, the only way that you can get better hits is
to give the computer better, more-specific terms for which to search. Here are some of the
strategies that you will test:

• Use a specific term.

• Use more than one term.
• Change the order of the terms.
• Use quotes to search for a complete phrase.
• Use a negative term.

You probably understand most of the strategies, but what's a negative term? Well, you can
use a negative term to keep certain information out of your search that you know is not what
you are looking for. A negative term is a word with a minus sign typed in front of it (-term). If I
search for (apple), I keep getting information about Apple Computers, but I really want
information about the fruit. I can try to use a negative term to help narrow my search (apple -
computer). If I search for (apple banana) to find out more information about those fruits, I
keep getting information about recipes using apples and bananas. I can try to use a negative
term to help narrow my search (apple banana -recipe).

Directions for students:

1. First, have the students familiarize themselves with Google and read the Google search basics:
Basic search help page.

2. Let them think of a topic to search for, and make a list of possible terms that describe it with
the Teacher’s assistance. For this class, we will research different kinds of fruit. My list would
be:
o Fruit,
o Apple,
o Banana,
o Orange,
o Etc.
3. Make a data table in your lab notebook in which to write down your results:
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Search Term Number of Google Hits

4. Go to the Google Home Page.

5. Choose search terms for your topic and type each one into the search box. You should try
combinations of different terms and strategies. Here are some examples of search terms using
the "fruit" topic (the text that you would type in to the search engine is shown in
parentheses—do not include the parentheses in your search):
o One non-specific term: (fruit)
o One specific term: (apple) or (banana)
o Two terms: (apple banana) or (apple orange)
o Three terms: (apple orange banana)
o Two terms with AND: (apple and orange)
o Two terms with "___ AND ___": ("apple and orange")
o Use a negative term: (apple - computer) or (apple banana - recipe)
o Try other combinations of terms you want to measure...

6. Click the "Google Search" button. On the results page, look near the top of the page for
number of hits and write the numbers in your data table. For example, there could be text
that says something like "About 1,020,000,000 results (0.53 seconds)."

7. Repeat for the other search terms you want to test, writing down the number of hits each
time in your data table.

8. Make a bar graph of your data, either on graph paper, or using a website like Create a Graph.
Make a scale of the number of hits on the left side of the graph (y-axis). Draw a bar for each
set of search terms up to the matching number of Google hits on your scale. Make sure that
your scale is big enough to include all of your data by setting the biggest number (the
maximum) above your largest piece of data.

Post activity discussion points:

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Have students discuss the data obtained from their bar charts by looking at the data
generated and answering the following questions.

1. Which searches retrieved the largest amount of data?

2. Which searches retrieved the smallest amount of data?
3. How did that relate to the quality of the search?
4. How do search terms without quotes (A and B) compare to search terms that are in quotes
("A and B")?

Reference:
Science Buddies Staff. (2014, June 28). Ready, Set, Search! Race to the Right Answer. Retrieved July
14, 2017 from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/CompSci_p015.shtml