New Lab and DOE Launch New STEAM Education Program

When Jeriel Caba, a junior at New Utrecht High School, first visited New Lab in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard he wondered, “Do I belong here?” The colorful, glass-ceilinged campus is a hub for nearly 1,000 entrepreneurs in frontier technology. Probably a little intimidating for a 16-year-old.

But New Lab’s latest venture—launched today—is specifically for teenagers.

The HE3AT Program, a partnership between New Lab, Microsoft and the NYC Department of Education, is a collaborative and project-based educational initiative focused on STEAM¬—science, technology, engineering, art, and math.

The idea sprouted from a pilot project last year when Michael Prayor, superintendent of South Brooklyn Schools, called in New Lab to present to students on his Youth Council.

“After one session together, the students started to think about technology differently, and its impact on the communities and the people they cared about, and how it can actually be a part of all the other topics that they were studying,” said Briana Ryan, New Lab’s education project manager.

This year, 180 students from seven Brooklyn South high schools will participate in HE3AT’s first cohort. In conjunction with their Advanced Placement courses, students will work in cross-school teams to explore how technology can solve problems in healthcare, education, energy, environment and agriculture (HE3AT).

Once a month, students will visit New Lab or Microsoft to engage in the principles of Design Thinking, a human-centered design process. Industry professionals at these sites will serve as mentors, helping students apply the lenses of equity and empathy¬—key elements of Design Thinking—to the solutions and prototypes they develop.

Camilla Daphnis, a senior at the High School for Medical Professions, wants to be a nurse and sees HE3AT as a chance to learn to solve problems in the healthcare field. At HE3AT’s launch event she and her classmates crowded around a New Lab entrepreneur as he demonstrated a device that increases patient freedom by motorizing any wheelchair.

“Maybe I can put something out there into the city that can really help,” said Daphnis, “and then be like, we did that, we were a part of that.”

As a young woman of color, Daphnis would be helping to change the demographics of STEAM fields, which are still largely male and white. In fact, only about 29 percent of STEAM jobs are held by people of color, according to data from the National Science Foundation.

This is a fact not lost on New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, who has made school integration a priority. In addition to helping students build critical job skills for the 22nd century, he sees HE3AT as an opportunity to diversify the STEAM industries.

Employers are not looking for people who can answer test questions correctly, he noted at HE3AT’s launch event.

“It’s about can you work on a team?” Carranza said. “Do you have the skills to collaborate with others? Are you thoughtful? Are you innovative? Those are the skills.”

Jeriel Caba is still unsure what he wants to do after high school. He’s thinking something in medicine or business. But after meeting some New Lab entrepreneurs, he now feels like he belongs here.

“I’m getting into this,” said Caba. “I would love to work here and probably make my own project, you know. Inspire and innovate. Show them what I’m all about.”