Every day last week, UTRGV hosted events across its campuses to celebrate HESTEC.
HESTEC began Oct. 2 with Educator Day. A panel, including UTRGV President Guy Bailey, discussed the importance of STEM literacy.
Daisy Martinez, a reporter for KRGV-TV Channel 5 and panel moderator, asked Bailey what he wants educators to know about UTRGV’s way of preparing students “for leadership and globalization” in regard to STEM.
“If you think about your work, if you’re really going somewhere, you’re learning,” Bailey said. “If you’re not learning, you’re going nowhere. And so, we want to help our students, more than anything, to be learners, to be lifelong learners.”
Other discussion panel members were U.S. Representatives Henry Cuellar, Filemon Vela and Vicente Gonzalez, all Texas Democrats who spoke via video; Tina Aguirre, downstream retail services and operations manager for Shell; Capt. Thomas C. Herzig, U.S. Navy Medical Service Corps; Kate Rogers, executive vice president for the Holdsworth Center; and Arturo Cavazos, superintendent of the Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District.
Stephen Ritz, STEM/STEAM executive director and CEO of the Green Bronx Machine, gave a keynote address, telling more than 100 educators gathered in the University Ballroom on the Edinburg campus about how he has been educating children through agriculture.
Jerri Pineda, a math teacher at Santa Rosa High School, and Ricardo Ramirez, a science teacher at San Benito High School, each received a UTRGV HESTEC ExxonMobil Educator Day 2017 award. Both were selected as some of the best teachers in the Valley.
Student Leadership Day
KRGV-TV News Anchor Dina Herrera-Garza welcomed everyone to Student Leadership Day. The day allowed students from Ringgold Middle School and other students to see what STEM fields are like.
“HESTEC is about involving the younger generation with engineering, boys and girls,” said Ivania Chapa, an electrical engineering student in charge of guiding about 70 students for the day. “… Right now, they’re trying to build the biggest tower out of marshmallows and spaghetti strips. The whole point of it is to show in engineering you need a lot of teamwork to succeed in your career.”
Students were challenged through other different activities such as the Army’s pushup challenge. They also visited the H-E-B Planetarium on the Edinburg campus.
Ritz gave another encouraging keynote address, as did Grand Hank, the Hip-Hop Scientist, who spoke to more than 200 students.
Latina Day
Last Wednesday, Latina Day allowed mothers and daughters to meet STEM professionals, ask questions and listen to discussions.
Samantha Silvas, who works for ExxonMobil in the Business Support Advisory Department, was one of the speakers.
“I actually sat in these chairs to watch a presentation about ExxonMobil when I was in school here,” Silvas said.
She spoke about her career and discussed the STEM fields with a group of 33 female students from Harlingen Academy for Health Science Professions, Raymondville Options Academic Academy and IDEA Weslaco College Prep.
Other speakers included Sarah Sagredo-Hammond, co-owner of Atlas RGV, and Cristina Solis-Wilson, CEO of CM Institute of Leadership, who presented on communication and networking. Bridgett Krause, executive director, international trainer and executive coach for the John Maxwell Team, gave a presentation on leadership.
Robotics Day
Hundreds of students from the Rio Grande Valley participated in last Thursday’s Robotics Day competition in the Jacob Brown Auditorium. It was one of many events hosted by UTRGV as part of the Hispanic, Engineering, Science and Technology Week.
Juan P. Lopez, an electronics engineer and robotics teacher at W.A. Todd Middle School in Donna , said he has attended HESTEC the past couple of years and saw a lot of improvements.
“My students right now, they are sixth-graders, a month ago they didn’t even know what robotics [was], but they got a quick introduction to that and they seem to like it,” Lopez said.
After the competition events, Jonathan Nguyen, a senior from Achieve Early College High School in McAllen, was among the contestants.
“I thought it was cool today,” Nguyen said. “I noticed a lot of designs that kind of blew my mind ’cause I didn’t know we could do that with these type of parts. … It kind of expanded my view on what to do next time and I got more interested in robotics and programming.”
South Middle School (Team Two) in Edinburg received first place overall.
