Enroot Students Intern at Cambridge Community Television

Lights! Camera! Action! Cambridge students enjoyed an evening showcasing the videos they created at CCTV as part of their internship experience. Students received certificates for their video productions and amazed the audience, which included CCTV staff and Enroot staff, with their creativity and hard work! By participating in the internship, students get experience, training, and exposure to everything that makes a television station function. Students experience anything from live cable-casting, media production, computer lab supervision, training and education, and many administrative responsibilities. And just this week, two students, Harry and Biruk, both received the CCTV Youth Award at CCTV's annual event which was held as a Zoom event.

Check out:

Aman Khalifa's video "Unaccustomed Earth"  
Valeria Mendez's video "My Crazy Life"
Biruk Endale's video "The Fear"
Harry Jean's video "When I First Started Working at CCTV"

Exciting Updates about Scholarships and Summer Programs for Our Students!

All three Somerville High School (SHS) Enroot students who applied for the SHS SPARK Summer Scholarship 2020 were selected to receive scholarship funding towards a summer program of their choice. Two students will attend the Harvard Pre-Medical one-week summer intensive program. And our third student will attend the one-week Harvard Business Academy summer intensive program.

The SPARK Scholarship offers students the opportunity to experience a broad range of academic and career possibilities. SPARK helps students realize that their place in the world is determined by their efforts and success, and not by their backgrounds. 

We are so thrilled to share that the teachers, college counselors, and department heads on the SPARK selection committee were really impressed by what our students have done with Enroot. Student applications where they wrote in detail about seminars and the work that they do with their mentors and tutors especially stood out. The committee also counted in a student's favor that he or she had sought extra help from Enroot staff. One student included in his application the resume he worked on in seminar with his mentor although this was not asked in the application submission, and this really impressed and stood out to the committee. 

Sophia, our Americorps Ambassador of Mentoring through Mass Mentoring Partnership, works tirelessly to support students as much as she can. She encouraged students to apply for the SPARK Scholarship and sent the application to mentors to also encourage students to apply and offer help. Sophia also offered extra 1-1 help to students during school and over February vacation week and supported students.

In addition to the SPARK Scholarship, four Enroot students applied to the Biogen Community Lab Summer Program and were accepted! 

We are so excited for our students and proud that they are pursuing these amazing opportunities. 

Victory for Enroot students on the Somerville High School Robotics Team!

Highlander Robotics, the Somerville High School FIRST Robotics Competition Team, participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition where each year teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work during a six-week period to build robots capable of competing in the year's competition. FIRST -- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology -- uses a robot challenge to build STEM skills and interests among students. 

The robot named Obi Munch Kenobi-was designed, built, programmed, tested, and driven by Enroot students on the Highlander Robotics team. A Somerville High School (SHS) junior who is a second-year Enroot Leadership Cohort student, served as the robot operator. And another student, a SHS junior who is an Enroot Emerge Cohort student (and Explore Cohort student last year), served as the human player. 

Enroot’s SHS students finished the qualifying rounds ranking in 7th place out of 38 teams advancing them to the quarter-finals where the top eight teams competed. In the quarter-finals, our students defeated the team that finished 4th in the qualifying rounds advancing them to the semi-finals being a part of the top four teams and won the Engineering Inspiration Award. This award is the second most prestigious award in FRC for students’ outreach to middle schoolers, participation in community events, and presentation before FRC judges. 

We are so thrilled and proud of our students making it to the semi-finals and winning this prestigious award from FRC!

Enroot visits the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

My name is Dachenie Ganthier and I’m a 14-year-old sophomore at Cambridge Rindge Latin School.  I was granted the amazing opportunity through Enroot to hear other people’s amazing and wonderful stories and their paths through the medical field.  Those words awaken my soul when I hear them “THE MEDICAL FIELD” and a little fun fact about me is that I wanted to be a doctor since before I was born but I recently find about that I wanted to be a general surgeon.  It was an honor to receive this opportunity and thankful for Enroot for providing this magical and magnificent experience to us. We were able to hear four amazing people’s stories and their way through become who they are today. The four awesome speakers explain their paths through working with organizations internationally. Which is awesome and they worked with organizations to respond trough humanitarian crisis around the world. They taught us that there are so many ways that you could be involved in the medical field. Sometimes they travel weekly to respond to humanitarian crisis around the world and find ways they can make their job better and be better at what they are.

“They inspired me to become what I want to become and more. ”

— Dachenie, Enroot Student

Don’t forget about the awesome free awesome food they provided for us (burgers to be exact) Who doesn’t love free food? I want to be a general surgeon and with Enroot behind my back I know I could be anything.

Enroot '19 Graduate Josee Receives Friends of CRLS First Scholars Award!

Congratulations to our very own Enroot graduate Josee for receiving the Friends of CRLS First Scholars award!!

FOCRLS helps determined, high achieving CRLS students and we at Enroot are ecstatic they have chosen to support a first generation immigrant student in our Cambridge community. Josee will be studying criminal justice at the University of Massachusetts Boston next year and will continue to be a part of our Enroot family by participating in Enroot’s College Success Program. When asked about her future endeavors at UMass Boston this is what she had to say:

“Being the first in my family to embark on a four-year college education means a lot to me and to my family. Also, I am grateful for being the first, because I can show a good example to my little cousins so that they will be interested to go to college like me. They can also use me as a resource to help them with school work and life's situations. I hope that one day I will become a detective and come to help people who don't have a voice within society, especially people of color. My goal is to do outreach and teach people about how the criminal justice system works. Through workshops, I also want to teach them when and how to claim their basic human rights."

Way to go Josee, we know there are only more great things to come!!

Enroot Students Visit the Biogen Community Lab!

Students from our Cambridge cohort visited the Biogen community lab where they conducted science experiments, in addition to learning about diversity and leadership. Special thanks to our hosts Biogen for opportunities like these that allow students that don't typically have this degree of access to engage with and learn about STEM! #BiogenSTAR

Math Circle 4 with Lesley University

Race to 100

The goal is to get 100 points. The challenge is you need to get exactly 100. 

Be careful! You automatically lose if you go over 100.

1. Roll 2 dice

2. Choose if you want to add, subtract, multiply, or divide the two numbers.

3. Record your score for the round and add it to your previous total.

4. Take turns following steps 1-3 until someone reaches 100 or everyone else loses (by going over 100).

For example:

1. I roll a 2 and a 3. 

2. I choose to multiply.

3. I record my score of 6.

(I wait for the other players to take their turns.)

1. I roll a 4 and a 4.

2. I choose to multiply.

3. I record my score of 16 and add it to my previous total.

(I wait for the other players to take their turns.)

Be careful when you get close to 100!

1. I roll a 6 and a 4.

2. If I multiply I lose. If I add I lose! So I’ll have to subtract.

3. I record my score of 2 and add it to my previous total.

(I wait for the other players to take their turns.)

Math Circle 3 with Lesley University

This week’s mentee/mentor activity is to do an interview. This isn’t like a job interview, so don’t get nervous! The idea is to have a conversation about each of your experiences about math. Share stories with each other. At the end, tell the group about some things you noticed.

• What are the similarities and differences between your mentor’s experience and your experience with math?

• In the leadership seminar, we noticed that when you google “mathematician,” you find almost all elderly, white men who lived decades ago. How does that representation of mathematicians compare to your experiences?

Earn points toward prizes for each comment you post!

Don’t forget you can still play Tic Tac Toe and the other versions with family, friends, and your mentor. Post a comment about your strategies on that blog post to earn points. Also, you’ll need dice or spinners for the mentoring session on April 30, so make or find some to be prepared!

Just for Mentors

Math Circle 2 with Lesley University

Puzzle

Math Circle with Lesley University

1. Mentor Copy Distance Tic Tac Toe

2. Student Copy Distance Tic Tac Toe