Alan & Jaime’s Story: Investing in Tomorrow’s STEM Leaders

This is part of a series spotlighting individuals that the MPS Foundation has the honor of serving.

The Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes (ALBA) on the South Side is one of 21 bilingual schools in Milwaukee Public Schools. Students at the K-8 academy learn in both Spanish and English, and is a haven for learning languages, arts, and STEM. Last spring, second graders Alan Ojeda, Yatzil Mexicano, Jaime Bonfil, and Daniela Martinez Mora won first place in the Engineering Category at the district-wide STEM Fair for their Marble Maze project.

Their engineering instructor, Courtney Farley, liked teaching the marble maze unit because it gave the kids a chance to try on the role of engineers. “They had to go through the different steps of the design process and then create a maze to show what they’ve learned. A key point was how engineers don’t just build something and get it right instantly. They need to redesign and look at how they can improve it.” Sure enough, the student’s first attempt had a big problem. The walls were placed too close together, and the marble wouldn’t roll. But these beginners couldn’t just give up—they were engineers now!

After making notes in their journals on what wasn’t working and why, they sketched a plan for Marble Maze 2.0. Since the kids were determined to make a high-quality marble maze, they also had to figure out what defined both bad and good marble mazes to design accordingly. Good marble mazes couldn’t be too easy or too hard. They should also offer traps and different directions. Functionally, they needed straight lines and, for aesthetics, lots of attractive colors. Finally, after several attempts, the kids got it. The project was ready for the school’s STEM Fair, where it was enthusiastically received.

Next stop: the district-wide STEM Fair at the Baird Center in downtown Milwaukee.

Everything about the field trip was exciting for the students. Alan, who was in the group, loved getting matching T-shirts and riding the bus, while his project partner Jaime maintains a whole list, “I liked everything. I liked the lunch break. I liked the bathroom break. I liked the activities. I liked presenting to the judges. I liked getting the prize. I liked hearing that we got 1st place.”

First place at the STEM Fair is not an honor many STEM Fair scholars end up with. What put the ALBA student’s project over the top? Solid design informed by plenty of trial and error, as well as those sneaky, sneaky trap exits. Ms. Farley suspects one other tactic helped, too: the kids approaching judges directly to introduce their Marble Maze personally. By doing this, the kids went the extra mile, sharing smart designs and demonstrating confidence in what was learned. And what exactly was learned? As Alan, now 9, put it, “How to be creative, how to speak to people, how to take turns, and how to work with Jaime and the team.”

Providing world-class educational enrichment opportunities to all Milwaukee-area children is why the MPS Foundation was formed, and because many of these opportunities wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Ms. Farley attests that “the MPS STEM Fair is invaluable to our students and wouldn’t exist without the MPS Foundation.” Ultimately, giving money to the MPS Foundation for programs means expanding what is possible tomorrow. For 8-year-old Jaime, the STEM Fair unlocked a whole new career interest:

“Before participating in the STEM Fair I just wanted to be a YouTuber. Now, I also think I could be an architect and design cool houses that people would like.”

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