Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation: Sports, STEM & Diversity
March 6, 2020
In February, Sport and STEM Alliance member, the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF), highlighted the power of science and sport through two STEM events for students and educators at Dodger Stadium. These events, and the LADF mission as a whole, are rooted in the belief that access to education resources shouldn’t be dependent upon your zip code - and that baseball is an incredible textbook for STEM skills.
LADF’s curriculum and initiatives, including their two most recent events, expose underserved students to STEM subjects with the hope of improving diversity in STEM higher education and careers.
The Science of Baseball
LADF’s Science of Baseball curriculum provides a mechanism for teachers to help students improve their academic performance. LADF’s goal is to translate students’ love of baseball into an appreciation, understanding and passion of the core science and mathematics standards woven throughout the sport. Through this approach, it provides teachers with the tools and resources critical to empowering students who may be underperforming academically by relating core curriculum topics to their athletic strengths, capabilities and interests.
Last year, only 17% of Latino and 14% of Black students met state science standards on California's 2019 standardized tests, and low-income youth had especially low scores. The LADF Science of Baseball curriculum was launched in the Inglewood Unified School District in 2018 and began with 22 teachers implementing the curriculum in 3rd- 5th grade classrooms. In 2019, LADF announced an $88,000 grant to Science of Sport to expand the LADF Science of Baseball curriculum for 6th - 8th grade classrooms by training an additional 60 educators for the 2019-2020 school year.
During a two-day interactive training held on February 14 and 15 at Dodger Stadium, 60 teachers represented 48 schools in Inglewood Unified School District, Compton Unified School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, Teach for America and Para Los Niños Charter Schools. Together, these math, science and physical education teachers will be impacting over 6,000 students with this innovative program.
Each teacher received a materials kit for use in their classroom and web portal access to supplementary materials such as videos, photos, worksheets and baseball data sources to teach the lessons. Also included is a planning packet containing four Dodgers-themed projects and a culminating STEM Field Day hosted at Dodger Stadium.
A participating teacher shared, “It’s great how there is such an amazing curriculum that ties in all major subjects and it makes it fun for the students and teachers.”
The continued need for these initiatives is clear as a fellow teacher stated, “Keep them coming! We need more workshops tying STEM and Sports together.”
College & Career Accelerator: Dodger Women in STEM
LADF also hosted over 150 young women in the Stadium Club for a Dodger Women in STEM career panel as part of its College & Career Accelerator (CCA) initiative. CCA is designed to expose first-generation and low-income students to college and career opportunities. The goal is to use the LADF brand to make college and career pathways exciting and providing access to career knowledge, college application support and networking opportunities.
In attendance were female students from LADF nonprofit partners: jk livin Foundation, Students Run LA, College Track, I Have a Dream Los Angeles, California State University, Northridge, Think Together and Proyecto Pastoral. These LADF partner organizations are working to support underserved youth with before, during and after-school programming across Los Angeles including Watts, South Los Angeles and Boyle Heights.
According to the National Girls Collaborative Project, while women constitute almost 50% of the labor market, there are only 28% of women in STEM fields as opposed to 72% of men. The Dodger Women in STEM career panel helped to showcase some of the amazing women in this field and inspire students to explore the possibilities.
Dodger panelists included: Emily Walthouse, Project Supervisor, Planning & Development, Tahlor Cleveland, Coordinator, Planning & Development, Britney D'Amato, Information Technology Desktop Tech and Alison Walker, Business Analyst. Each shared their personal college and career path, advice for students as begin career exploration and insights into their current positions with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Project Supervisor, Emily Walthouse, said it best with her final advice to the young women in the room, “It doesn't matter what job or what work you're doing. If you work hard, people will notice. Let go of what you think you're ‘supposed to be doing,’ if you enjoy what you're doing…that's what matters."