SEM Link begins third cohort of STEM Journal Club with New curriculum and Partners

ATLANTA - Sept. 28, 2022 - PRLog -- On October 6^th, Science, Engineering and Mathematics Link Inc. (SEM Link) begins the third cohort of its Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Journal Club with a new curriculum and partners.  The STEM Journal Club is a program of SEM Link's Experimental Design Program, whose goal is to develop the STEM communication and literacy skills for Metro Atlanta high school students, with priority consideration for students from ethnic and racial communities with historically low participation in high-level STEM research competitions. The STEM Journal Club is a hybrid program in which digital and in-person learning opportunities take place from October through May. SEM Link is working with new partners such as Association of Black Researchers (ABR), Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), Emory University and West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA) to provide additional learning opportunities for the students such as field trips and guest lecturers. "With each iteration of the program, with each new cohort we discover additional ways to enhance the experience for the students. The addition of these new partners will provide ways for the students to learn about STEM Research beyond what they read in the journal articles" states Ms. Tokiwa T. Smith, SEM Link Founder and Executive Director.

The Journal Club's semi-monthly virtual sessions will led be by Mr. Mikaili Abdullah who developed the new curriculum based on a National Institutes for Health (NIH) framework for reading scientific journals. "Utilizing the NIH framework as the foundation for our curriculum allows us to engage the students on a high level as we develop their critical thinking acumen. Developing critical thinking acumen at this educational level, will give them confidence to read and analyze scientific literature, discuss STEM topics and is a valuable skill to have as they prepare for college and navigate their STEM career journey." states Mikaili Abdullah, Program Instructor. Each month, students will review a journal article in a different STEM discipline and have a guest lecturer that is a STEM Researcher in that discipline. The final project for the STEM Journal Club participants is the creation of a podcast episode based on a STEM Journal article, which will be recorded in a podcast studio under the guidance of Mr. M-T Strickland,  and featured on our SEM Explained podcast (https://anchor.fm/sem-explained).