GLOBAL STUDENTS SCIENCE ALLIANCE

The organization is not for profit but needs legal and financial assistance to achieve non-profit status.

The specific problem addressed is under-learning, and under-respecting the capacity of all young students to grasp scientific concepts, connect them to the critical issues on our planet, and to develop confidence in answering the question, “What do YOU think?”  This focus is broader than addressing under-achieving as reflected in test scores, and lasers in on learning itself.    Corollary aspects of the problem include:

• The overwhelming world of academic administration, government programs, district plans, even millions in funds, which somehow get lost in reaching the goal of students’ achievement and preparation for adult life.
• Teachers with credentials, Master’s degrees, PhD’s, deal with multiple challenges and test-taking measurements, and often don’t have expertise and time for science per se.
• In the inner city school related to this program, hundreds of new edition science books, sat in storage unused.
• The problem experienced here, applies to approximately 6 million students in public California schools, 1 million in private schools, and hundreds of millions across the globe from elitist schools to children suffering in Haiti, Gaza, Ukraine, and everything in between.  Specific numbers related to development of this program were 500 students in an inner-city magnet school, 100 students in pre-school, 10 in home school.
• While aiming for diversity, inclusion, equity, we are not paying enough attention to the effects of an ‘us versus them’ world, with group identification over and above human connection, especially amongst  children, the future guardians of the globe.
• Multiple languages and the enrichment they offer, is challenged by parental detachment via language and socio-economic barriers.
• There is also a significant decline in the structure and logic of the English language, spoken and written, particularly in poorer areas.
• Students in all zip codes experience home issues such as divorce, domestic violence, alcoholism and addiction, mental illness, and for many children, poverty. 

 A closing thought on the parameters of the problem is my personal experience growing up in a Bronx school of 5000 students, where the average class size in elementary school was 80 students per class taught by one nun with a yardstick, no assistant.  Yet, something happened in these schools that resulted in high NYC standardized test scores, which is lacking in our current crisis of low scores, achievement gaps, lack of human connection. Moving forward with AI and other resources leads towards a deeper grasp of learning science and critical thinking, and enables us to address and solve our global challenges, both environmental and human.

(One of many climate science projects linked.) 

Even in the poorest and least equitable places on earth, inner knowledge is a diamond that cannot be crushed.  The intention of The Global Students Science Alliance is to nurture understanding of scientific and mathematical concepts, to encourage excellence in learning, and to connect with children in other cultures and countries, as we heal from a global pandemic, ongoing wars, and move towards global well-being.  Using technology and protected lines of communication, students here and around the world have and can get to know and care about one another, as they grow generationally into the guardians of our globe.  Specific assets include:

• Science is a common language, the Periodic table is its alphabet.  AI enhances communication in all languages, and provides learning modalities free from bias.
• Relating science to climate change, pollution, energy, nutrition, encourages caring about these issues, as well as confidence in answering the question, “What do YOU think?”
• GSSA offers resources and levels of learning appropriate to each student and group. Little ones enjoy running around with magnets and drawing up iron filings from a dish.  More advanced students are able to grasp magnetism from inside the earth and around our planet, and can access NASA content like the ‘Lost Lessons of  Christa McAuliffe,’ one of them on magnets.
• AI can assist in gathering learning resources and demonstrating experiments and instruments otherwise difficult to access, create interactive games, and assess students' needs.
• AI enhances lessons, for example, plane and car emissions are now documented statistics but holding them in the context of the problem is another whole matter of calculations addressable through AI.
• The GSSA solution doesn’t require a world of certified mentors.  It offers resources, support, and invites reciprocal participation of all involved.
• GSSA is feasible, and testing has been successful between Turkey, Ireland, other places in America.  AI simplifies coordination of time and place.
• Within a community setting that encourages parents to participate, many of whom might not speak English, you have a silver platter of a child explaining the experiment in their home language and parents able to become more supportive of education.
• Another benefit is character formation with self-worth, interest, honesty, and knowledge filling the mind and soul, along with respect for all children rather than imposed ideas of generally adult prejudices. 
• It sparks interest in life-long careers.

A closing thought is the connection of those gathered to watch the 2024 solar eclipse, the shared warmth, joy, learning, and recognition of our magnificent sun, moon, and earth.  The solution of the "Global Students Science Alliance" provides hope for the future and a promise of peace on earth. The use of Artificial Intelligence provides opportunities for all who exist without privilege, and deserve inclusion.    

Note: Professor ana's global science students@cathycrosby6990 provides a YT look at the children's joy in learning.  A GFM and Google Photos album is also available.

The population served includes inner-city preschoolers, who loved learning forensics in the pattern of their shoeprints.  Diversity and inclusion were critical, with the children inspecting plants like George Washington Carver, and admiring the brave Bessie Coleman as their little aero-planes lifted upwards with a hair dryer.

When the children graduated to an inner-city magnet school, teachers asked for a science experiment, and were accommodated with lava lamps, explaining why the bubbles go up and down.  The population of 500 students at 74th Street school is roughly two thirds African- American, and a third Latine.

The experiments were such a hit that the program grew to include the entire school.  Sponsors contributed materials, microscopes, and we got a greenhouse to understand, The Greenhouse Effect.  Groups within every class presented thoughtful science projects on climate change. The school librarian commented that it’s all the students talk about – Science.

Supportive materials meant that young students took home new crayons when they were used to coloring with broken stubs.  The older grades, which loved volcanoes, took home mini volcano toys.  They received the respect that all children deserve.

They also learned about interesting careers in science.  You can’t aspire to be an oceanographer or aerospace-engineer, if you never heard of them.

Parents were welcome, and non-English speaking parents communicated with their children in their home language, and bonded with them in learning science.  Parents were ecstatic to see beautiful coffee crystals under a microscope. The school won status as a Community School and received funding in many forms, including clothes and shoes for children in need.

Some of the ways that students remain underserved after Covid include:

• Hundreds of science books, brand new editions, sit in storage.
• Teaching focuses on scores for standardized tests, and is unable to present the science that these young students are able to grasp.
• Materials are lacking, despite an infusion of money after Covid, however, there is no one to nurture the science program.
• The students’ potential for learning science is not met.  Often, when children reach high school, they are no longer interested.
• Other countries are minimal as well, with science weeks or nothing at all.

Currently, the target population includes The Realm Creative Academy, where the success of the science program is being expanded to create a high school program.  Their flexible hours are well-suited to the global idea, and they value various modalities of learning.  It is fun to build a dirt volcano but it is also wonderful to paint the terrifying beauty of volcanoes around the world.  Similarly, the photos on YT and Google Photos of children engaged in science illustrate a joy and learning beyond descriptive words.

One primary lesson confirmed by experience is the power of individual connection.  When I entered 74th Street School, arriving parents helped lug in my supplies, and when students spotted me, they’d run from all corners, hug me, and ask, “Professor Ana, when is our next science lesson?” 

As Team Leader, I have been driven all my life to work for a better world, and my team reflects these ideals in their hearts and actions. 

• During college, I spent time on the island of Sylt, off the coast of Germany, where I soon spoke the language and worked with school children. As part of their educational system, students spent summer weeks, learning about nature along the coast of the North Sea.
• After graduate school in philosophy, I participated in the movement to end world hunger, where I befriended the civil rights legend, Mr. Dick Gregory.  This led to activism with the NAACP and a TV production in support of ending hunger and civil rights. 
• As president of a national holiday event, I supervised 12 committees and 2500 volunteers in Los Angeles, who visited persons institutionalized in hospitals, prisons, senior homes, and homeless on Skid row. 

My personal background is well-suited to wanting fairness for all. 

• Growing up in the Bronx during a time and place  when the only pathways for girls were to become a nun or a housewife, my own parents diagnosed me as “too tall, too smart, too athletic,” for a girl.  When I won a scholarship at a NYC science fair, and attended an all-male university, I took three buses a day to my job in New Jersey, another bus into Manhattan for night classes, and a late train back to the Bronx. When I graduated, companies said, “We don’t hire women,” straight to your face. 
• I then studied philosophy and auditioned to study Chopin with the renowned Mieczyslaw Munz, chair of piano at Juilliard.  My abilities were an oddity in my circumstances, and the effects remained for a very long time.
• The doors of justice opened a crack, and I was hired as a criminalist at the L.A. County Crime Lab, where I was the first person to identify fentanyl, the point being my persistence when the practice encouraged writing off uncommon drugs.
• My intimate family, my adult daughter and son, and my six grandchildren are multi-cultural with roots in Europe and Africa.

My team includes a knowledgeable school librarian, parents from Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Japan, and family in Ireland, Poland, Africa, and Australia, who are contacts already involved or scheduled for upcoming presentations.  Former college students are involved, and come from ideal target locations like a village in Bhutan. We have a high-level brain researcher, a UCLA physician, and a PhD in chemistry former colleague, as advisors. My daughter is an award-winning PBS early education champion for her podcasts on inclusion.  My son has a background in film, and until Covid, worked in Mexico for many years, is fluent in Spanish, loves Guadalajara, and is very interested in AI and GSSA.  It’s a powerful, supportive, activist team that will benefit from support in coalescing and strategy.

Reviewing the categories of Prototype and Pilot, the Pilot is selected for the following reasons:

• A major segment of the solution is to provide an opportunity for students to grasp scientific concepts, which was done successfully for 12 years, up until Covid.
• It relates experimental data to climate change, pollution, energy, and nutrition.
• Non-traditional learning modalities were encouraged, e.g., photographing or drawing experiments and results, to document in their notebooks.
• Special needs students have been a part of the school programs, including learning and emotional challenges, along with physical ones.
• It involved parents and the larger community with parent nights and supermarket trips, e.g.,  to document added sugars and GMOs vs. non-GMOs. This also alerted management to community interest and importance of products.
• Another example, was a student noting that he gained twenty pounds every time he returned to the United States and lost it upon his return to South America. So, the diets of other countries were incorporated into our studies.
• The global expansion has been tested in two countries, Turkey and rural Ireland;  domestically, with a few East Coast students; and two more are already scheduled, one in Guatemala, another in a Polish village. Feedback was requested from the students, who loved the science and wanted additional contact with the students in other cultures.

At the current stage of progress, I, the Team Leader, sometimes feel like an orchestral conductor playing all the instruments.  There are good cellists and violinists, a few horns, but support is needed in coordination of the symphony. 

• Strategy and pitching would be very helpful.  GSSA does not aim to have the entire globe on screen, however, the domestic and global test runs thus far confirm that it is feasible, and has gone beyond expectations in student interest for the global connection.
• Financial support would help with materials for classes, travel, public relations, and so many aspects of the program.
• Legal needs include forming a non-profit, which would in turn help to generate funds, as well as protect our work. . It could  advise with respect to regulations in other countries and school systems.
• Formation of a Board from many good people already involved, including parents, a school librarian, AI advisor, tech people, scientists, contacts here and abroad.
• Coordinating with other teams always leads to something positive generally unknown. For example, a friend who operates tours in Africa, visited an orphanage in Togo, a perfect type target school, which can access internet but not close to home.
• Technical support with AI in the form of language, science, logistics, and reaching all six continents, possibly the seventh, would promote the global goal.  The intention, however, starts small scale, student by student, school by school.
• Public relations and how to promote, e.g., a “GoFundMe.”  I created one but haven’t known how to get it out there. Sponsors have and do elevate the program to a whole new level.
• Cultural – the essence of GSSA embraces all cultures,  and ideas are welcomed from students, parents, community.  One example, I had a student who gained 20-40 pounds every time he came to school in America, and lost it returning  home in South America.  All cultures also deserve acknowledgement of situations and scientific progress in their homelands. 
• Market – we need supplies for experiments, ingredients, scales, microscopes, telescopes, printing needs, soil, salts, everything that enables our experiments and enhances their presentations. Also needed is connection with tech companies.

The MIT Challenge is an opportunity to have all hands on deck, human and AI, in order to truly change the world and, in fact, bring peace on earth.