Episode 44 : National STEM Day
November 6, 2023
Michele Heyward, a woman of color and civil engineer, celebrates National STEM Day by promoting STEM fields, especially for women and people of color. She shares her experience in building the power grid and emphasizes the diverse applications of STEM in areas like packaging engineering, environmental engineering, and industrial engineering. Michele encourages hands-on activities to teach engineering concepts to children, citing the "egg drop" game. She also discusses the impact of movies and real-life experiences in helping young people understand STEM careers. Throughout the livestream, Michele engages with viewers, shares anecdotes, and highlights the pervasive influence of STEM in everyday life.
What is going on everybody? This is Michele Heyward. Hey, everybody, it is actually snap national STEM Day. So science, technology, engineering and math. It is nationally celebrated here in the US to promote science, technology, engineering and math to the masses, mostly children. But I thought I would get on and talk about it with maybe some grownups. Yes. So, for those of you who are new to me, my name is Michele Heyward, I'm a woman color in STEM, I have a civil engineering degree did that was a civil engineer for many years, worked in heavy construction, actually building the power grid, here in the United States of America. So when you turn on your lights, they give me make of me. So literally, I worked construction, on a job site, usually in work trailer, a dirty white pickup truck. But I did not spend my time in a traditional office. So when it comes to national STEM Day, days like this, I highly, highly encourage women and people of color to step forward into the spotlight to to encourage others, Hey, Chris, to do something they may not see others around them do explain to them what they do in their career. So I have an older brother, who's actually an electrical engineer. And it's funny because he works. In utilities, he works nice for a utility company. Actually, it's a second utility company he's working for.
And I build the power grid, but I don't work for the utility company, utility companies use usually my client, that I'm helping to manage the construction of their project. And he's on the other side, once it's built, he operates it, hey, thanks for joining. So make sure it's maintained, it's functioning properly. So it's really interesting how we both unintentionally ended up working in energy at the same time for a few years, his employers have never been my client. But it was he's an electrical engineer, but I was out still as a civil engineer, building a power grid. So if you have young children, or maybe you're a parent, and you're really trying to see what this stem mean, and I can do more of the E in STEM, which is engineering, because a lot of things really around you are engineered, including this container, a packaging engineer will help determine the type of plastic you will use, the thickness of the plastic and the dimensions of it for for what will go in here, sometimes you'll see a mechanical engineer, chemical engineer do that as well. But it really, really varies. So then, so you'd have containers, then the actual plastic itself, you probably have a materials engineer, or maybe a chemical engineer, that will help develop it. So sometimes even a chemist, depending what it is, these are more vitamins. So a chemist may be involved in this. So everywhere around you. You see engineers play a different part, a different role in the world around you. A lot of times with civil people like Oh, so you build bridges and roads. And that's it, not me. But there are definitely civil engineers who do stuff.
But a lot of what you see even from the water that you drink, they are engineers, environmental engineers, wastewater engineer engineers who deal with the water systems in in the US. So there's very little areas, very few areas in the world, or things in the world, I should say, where engineers and or scientists and technologists, even mathematicians are not involved. How many of you have car insurance, or life insurance? You probably do not know a mathematician. Or actually they call actuaries, which work and do calculations to determine and collect data and really determine like payouts and doing different tables when it comes to insurance. And people like really, really, it takes a lot of math and there are some people who actually do that. Sometimes it's finance people. And then other times there are people strictly with just straight math degrees, they end up in that industry. So we do we can fall into different little places. Hospitals, and it's very like oh you build a gas but you can actually have engineers who industrial engineers who may look at the flow of a hospital, like from emergency rooms, how wide the hallways need to be, where do you put the sensors for the doors automatically open when they're doing moving patients around in beds, we do a lot of a lot of different things. Manufacturing, of course, how high the, the conveyors can be, how equipment is set up, and we don't just think of hey, and thanks for doing it, we don't just think of it off the top of our heads. And when you to join, we actually a lot of times in manufacturing, or just in general, we have as engineers talk to a lot of people. For those of us that have worked, I've worked in manufacturing as well, for a short period of time, we talk to the people who actually do the work, because we aren't using the equipment, we aren't on the manufacturing floor working. So for us to design it when we're sitting at a desk most of time, there's no benefit. Because we're actually doing work for other people.
So we're constantly talking to people. And we might be pissing employees, the other workers off. But it's really for their benefit for us to tell them, they're always slumping over or is too high. So they're reaching up and they're extending, which is bad for them and their health and their their body over time for doing that for 1015 30 years, right? So we go through and we do different studies, and y'all are like, Why are they sitting there just staring at me. And it's really to figure out what's the best way to help you. So a lot of what we do as engineers is really to help people I know we're not a hell out of y'all. And unfortunately, we ask You really weird questions. We say really weird stuff. But truly, we are trying to understand how to improve something that will help you overall. So when it comes to STEM Day, I'm really really excited. Because I am always online and looking at videos of different toys and games kids are playing with. And sometimes you don't even have to give kids anything elaborate to put together right, so we give them Legos and different things to put together. But sometimes if you give them nothing, or very little, and you just give them a picture of something and said make this. So one of the best games I love to play waves to teach engineering is called an egg drop. Any like Michelle that's that does not find sound good. So you literally give kids raw eggs. And you can give them something like tape, Styrofoam, peanuts, cotton balls, and just other materials and say, hey, you need to protect this egg from cracking from dropping 10 feet, 12 feet, whatever, and to the ground. And they have to figure out with the materials they have, how to do that. And you're like really intense come up with very, very creative ways of doing that. Exactly. And it's one of the most fun exercises or activities I used to do when I used to do a lot of outreach stuff through society, women engineers, and outside of Black Engineers.
I didn't like the circuit breadboard thing with a light light I lied and understand that breadboard, but giving kids just different materials. So they had to think outside of the box on how to how to how to get it to work or how to get the egg not to break really helps them understand teamwork. Start asking questions and inspecting the materials around them. Plus you're given them a time limit to get it done right. Some sometimes we will even do a game by beforehand. And so what happens is with the game, we'll hand them out Penny so like for every question they get right, they can get a penny. Well, for each penny they get they get to purchase different materials. Like you can give them the basic for for all the groups, but every time they win something, they can win a penny which means they can buy some more materials or resources to help them with their project. And you're like that sounds kind of crazy, right? But in actuality, when you look at the way projects are put together, you look at competitors in the marketplace. Some of them have better materials than others and sometimes those with better materials because they had a larger budget still perform as the ones with the smaller budget and less material meals. And you know what happens, the one that had the smaller budget and less materials, if they're selling their product or service about the same price, one is making more money. So sometimes getting more resources doesn't mean you're going to end up making more money. It just ends up, you spent it on other stuff you thought you need it to succeed. So it's really, really fun to play that with with young people in that aspect, so they understand the finances of being an employee and a manager and having a budget and understanding what you actually need to succeed when it comes to a project. So Natalie, what do you know about engineering it Chris leave? Yeah, he did. Okay. Hey, April. So what do I know Natalie, like Michelle, you did not ask me this.
So we can do anything environmental engineering, environmental scientists, who may deal with air and soil conservation, different things like that. We can talk about by all biologists, I don't know what they do. After they get a biology degree and don't go to college or and they don't teach. I don't know. I don't know what they do after that. No, there was another Chris. His name was Chris nella. I didn't say you laughed. There was another Chris that said, Hey, we see Natalie badly cracking up at me. So it's, it's really interesting. I remember my youngest nephew. A few years ago, he hated. He used to hate me because I was the only Auntie that were punishment. Punish him. He was the youngest, and he's so cute and adorable. And, and he used to get away with stuff, but I will punish him. Ow. No, all these dang friends of mine are, are freaking nerds. Yes. See, you got some of the best friends. Natalie, nothing breaks down. They come they see all your other friends. Like girl is broken. I got some duct tape. We show it with tools. We got a plan, right? Or we say you need to call somebody and get that fix. We don't we don't have time. So it really really. So my youngest nephew. So when he started really liking me, and I say this a few years ago because he used to hate me. He started crying when I would leave. And then the SpiderMan movie came out where Jamie Foxx was electrical engineer. And when that and he loved this movie. And so when that movie came out, I said, Well, you know what, Jamie Foxx doesn't a movie. He said, Huh? I said Jamie Foxx is electrical engineer and he works on a power grid.
Yes, we do share it with blueprints and drawings, because we try and understand.
We try to make sure we don't break ish. Okay. I'll make it worse. How about that? And I said, Well, I build a power grid that Jamie Foxx works on. And he goes, Oh, and so it then made sense for him because he could never, I could never explain to him what I did. And we'd be driving down the road. I said, You see those poles were over there with a powerline zone. He's like, Yeah, I said, I help make sure those get built and he will go Oh. But when he looked at a Spider Man movie, I had Jamie Foxx in there. And he could identify with Jamie Foxx is African American and African American little boy. And then, um, Maya and Jamie foster working on a power grid. And he really liked the movie, it kind of clicked for him but not but it made a little bit more sense to him and explain to him what I did. So sometimes movies help. But it's even better when you can really take them somewhere and show them what you do. So blueprints help a lot. Excuse me. So although kids can't necessarily read the blueprints or the drawings that I read, just how we read how to put together assemble, assemble toys for Christmas are a great way to really teach somebody about civil engineering, mechanical engineering, how we put different things together and assemble them so but it's always fun. So if you chemistry I got a great great tip.
If you're trying to teach somebody, a child about chemistry, and even how to work with fractions, Baking, baking and doing like pancakes and stuff are really really great ways to do stuff. Because they have to do like two thirds of a cup of flour. One A a cup and a half of water, right. So it helps them understand the measurements. And then you have wet ingredients and dry ingredients. So you have to use different measuring tools. So those are really, really great ways to learn fractions. And people thought I was crazy. But I use that because one of my nieces loves to cook. And so I will show us I will go get the, you need the measuring cup that is two thirds cup. And she's like, What is two thirds cup and so I showed her what the 1/3 Cup was to 2/3 cups were in the one cup. And of course I saw you the I hit f5 minute. So it was is really it's a great way to teach fractions. So that 1/3 Cup was to third cosy 1/3. But what also happens when you're doing cooking anything, you're doing a change of state. So that is always good, too. So you're boiling water. So it goes from water from liquid to gas. And then when you're baking something, you can't reverse it, right is completely gone like. So putting together ingredients and baking a cake or brownies is really really a great way to understand chemistry. So chemistry I did okay, chemistry, I like physics better. So like I can bake a cake. But my cookies turn out like bricks. So I don't do that. I've tried several times. And my family and I have agreed that I should not do cookies. And that works for me because I really am not big on cookies, or pies. But I do cakes and peach cobbler. And that is it. So take different things there are really really very minut things, very specific things that engineers do. And they're all around you in your home, from the carpet to the paint to your furniture, the electricity coming in. Even of course the internet. You know what, Chris?
I forgot she was on here. I was about to say something. I'm not gonna say this. And I do not need this bot to help me. But
is the season of faithfulness. So I'm thankful for that in button. All my broadcasts, that's what I'd be thankful for. But engineering or STEM is always around us. If you're if you like NASA, NASA has a great channel here to follow on Periscope. They show so many different people they do they show some of their technology they developed. And, um, so many engineers live, so And of course you can catch the replay. So definitely, definitely follow NASA here on Periscope. They have a really, really cool channel. I want to say GE has a good channel on here. I haven't watched I haven't seen them broadcast in a while. And also and you think that's funny? And also um Oh good. Is it seen that? Maybe it's not seeing that on here? I forget who who has it. It may be over on Instagram. But yeah, they will do live streams and Insta Stories and posts short videos. So you can still see technology coming from large companies now on social and it's really, really cool and be able sometimes to engage with their people. Sometimes a lot of times you're not they're not able to answer questions. They're doing more of a of a videotape and not in engaging live stream. I would love for them to do more engaged in live streams. So we can ask more questions, especially when it comes to SNAM. So any questions for me about engineering construction? Chris, you get to ask me no questions because you got jokes. That's okay. One day, the joke will be on you all right, no questions. I am Michele Heyward woman of color sim civil engineer, and tech, founder of the company positive hire everybody. Have a great night and Happy National STEM Day. Bye, everybody.
And I build the power grid, but I don't work for the utility company, utility companies use usually my client, that I'm helping to manage the construction of their project. And he's on the other side, once it's built, he operates it, hey, thanks for joining. So make sure it's maintained, it's functioning properly. So it's really interesting how we both unintentionally ended up working in energy at the same time for a few years, his employers have never been my client. But it was he's an electrical engineer, but I was out still as a civil engineer, building a power grid. So if you have young children, or maybe you're a parent, and you're really trying to see what this stem mean, and I can do more of the E in STEM, which is engineering, because a lot of things really around you are engineered, including this container, a packaging engineer will help determine the type of plastic you will use, the thickness of the plastic and the dimensions of it for for what will go in here, sometimes you'll see a mechanical engineer, chemical engineer do that as well. But it really, really varies. So then, so you'd have containers, then the actual plastic itself, you probably have a materials engineer, or maybe a chemical engineer, that will help develop it. So sometimes even a chemist, depending what it is, these are more vitamins. So a chemist may be involved in this. So everywhere around you. You see engineers play a different part, a different role in the world around you. A lot of times with civil people like Oh, so you build bridges and roads. And that's it, not me. But there are definitely civil engineers who do stuff.
But a lot of what you see even from the water that you drink, they are engineers, environmental engineers, wastewater engineer engineers who deal with the water systems in in the US. So there's very little areas, very few areas in the world, or things in the world, I should say, where engineers and or scientists and technologists, even mathematicians are not involved. How many of you have car insurance, or life insurance? You probably do not know a mathematician. Or actually they call actuaries, which work and do calculations to determine and collect data and really determine like payouts and doing different tables when it comes to insurance. And people like really, really, it takes a lot of math and there are some people who actually do that. Sometimes it's finance people. And then other times there are people strictly with just straight math degrees, they end up in that industry. So we do we can fall into different little places. Hospitals, and it's very like oh you build a gas but you can actually have engineers who industrial engineers who may look at the flow of a hospital, like from emergency rooms, how wide the hallways need to be, where do you put the sensors for the doors automatically open when they're doing moving patients around in beds, we do a lot of a lot of different things. Manufacturing, of course, how high the, the conveyors can be, how equipment is set up, and we don't just think of hey, and thanks for doing it, we don't just think of it off the top of our heads. And when you to join, we actually a lot of times in manufacturing, or just in general, we have as engineers talk to a lot of people. For those of us that have worked, I've worked in manufacturing as well, for a short period of time, we talk to the people who actually do the work, because we aren't using the equipment, we aren't on the manufacturing floor working. So for us to design it when we're sitting at a desk most of time, there's no benefit. Because we're actually doing work for other people.
So we're constantly talking to people. And we might be pissing employees, the other workers off. But it's really for their benefit for us to tell them, they're always slumping over or is too high. So they're reaching up and they're extending, which is bad for them and their health and their their body over time for doing that for 1015 30 years, right? So we go through and we do different studies, and y'all are like, Why are they sitting there just staring at me. And it's really to figure out what's the best way to help you. So a lot of what we do as engineers is really to help people I know we're not a hell out of y'all. And unfortunately, we ask You really weird questions. We say really weird stuff. But truly, we are trying to understand how to improve something that will help you overall. So when it comes to STEM Day, I'm really really excited. Because I am always online and looking at videos of different toys and games kids are playing with. And sometimes you don't even have to give kids anything elaborate to put together right, so we give them Legos and different things to put together. But sometimes if you give them nothing, or very little, and you just give them a picture of something and said make this. So one of the best games I love to play waves to teach engineering is called an egg drop. Any like Michelle that's that does not find sound good. So you literally give kids raw eggs. And you can give them something like tape, Styrofoam, peanuts, cotton balls, and just other materials and say, hey, you need to protect this egg from cracking from dropping 10 feet, 12 feet, whatever, and to the ground. And they have to figure out with the materials they have, how to do that. And you're like really intense come up with very, very creative ways of doing that. Exactly. And it's one of the most fun exercises or activities I used to do when I used to do a lot of outreach stuff through society, women engineers, and outside of Black Engineers.
I didn't like the circuit breadboard thing with a light light I lied and understand that breadboard, but giving kids just different materials. So they had to think outside of the box on how to how to how to get it to work or how to get the egg not to break really helps them understand teamwork. Start asking questions and inspecting the materials around them. Plus you're given them a time limit to get it done right. Some sometimes we will even do a game by beforehand. And so what happens is with the game, we'll hand them out Penny so like for every question they get right, they can get a penny. Well, for each penny they get they get to purchase different materials. Like you can give them the basic for for all the groups, but every time they win something, they can win a penny which means they can buy some more materials or resources to help them with their project. And you're like that sounds kind of crazy, right? But in actuality, when you look at the way projects are put together, you look at competitors in the marketplace. Some of them have better materials than others and sometimes those with better materials because they had a larger budget still perform as the ones with the smaller budget and less material meals. And you know what happens, the one that had the smaller budget and less materials, if they're selling their product or service about the same price, one is making more money. So sometimes getting more resources doesn't mean you're going to end up making more money. It just ends up, you spent it on other stuff you thought you need it to succeed. So it's really, really fun to play that with with young people in that aspect, so they understand the finances of being an employee and a manager and having a budget and understanding what you actually need to succeed when it comes to a project. So Natalie, what do you know about engineering it Chris leave? Yeah, he did. Okay. Hey, April. So what do I know Natalie, like Michelle, you did not ask me this.
So we can do anything environmental engineering, environmental scientists, who may deal with air and soil conservation, different things like that. We can talk about by all biologists, I don't know what they do. After they get a biology degree and don't go to college or and they don't teach. I don't know. I don't know what they do after that. No, there was another Chris. His name was Chris nella. I didn't say you laughed. There was another Chris that said, Hey, we see Natalie badly cracking up at me. So it's, it's really interesting. I remember my youngest nephew. A few years ago, he hated. He used to hate me because I was the only Auntie that were punishment. Punish him. He was the youngest, and he's so cute and adorable. And, and he used to get away with stuff, but I will punish him. Ow. No, all these dang friends of mine are, are freaking nerds. Yes. See, you got some of the best friends. Natalie, nothing breaks down. They come they see all your other friends. Like girl is broken. I got some duct tape. We show it with tools. We got a plan, right? Or we say you need to call somebody and get that fix. We don't we don't have time. So it really really. So my youngest nephew. So when he started really liking me, and I say this a few years ago because he used to hate me. He started crying when I would leave. And then the SpiderMan movie came out where Jamie Foxx was electrical engineer. And when that and he loved this movie. And so when that movie came out, I said, Well, you know what, Jamie Foxx doesn't a movie. He said, Huh? I said Jamie Foxx is electrical engineer and he works on a power grid.
Yes, we do share it with blueprints and drawings, because we try and understand.
We try to make sure we don't break ish. Okay. I'll make it worse. How about that? And I said, Well, I build a power grid that Jamie Foxx works on. And he goes, Oh, and so it then made sense for him because he could never, I could never explain to him what I did. And we'd be driving down the road. I said, You see those poles were over there with a powerline zone. He's like, Yeah, I said, I help make sure those get built and he will go Oh. But when he looked at a Spider Man movie, I had Jamie Foxx in there. And he could identify with Jamie Foxx is African American and African American little boy. And then, um, Maya and Jamie foster working on a power grid. And he really liked the movie, it kind of clicked for him but not but it made a little bit more sense to him and explain to him what I did. So sometimes movies help. But it's even better when you can really take them somewhere and show them what you do. So blueprints help a lot. Excuse me. So although kids can't necessarily read the blueprints or the drawings that I read, just how we read how to put together assemble, assemble toys for Christmas are a great way to really teach somebody about civil engineering, mechanical engineering, how we put different things together and assemble them so but it's always fun. So if you chemistry I got a great great tip.
If you're trying to teach somebody, a child about chemistry, and even how to work with fractions, Baking, baking and doing like pancakes and stuff are really really great ways to do stuff. Because they have to do like two thirds of a cup of flour. One A a cup and a half of water, right. So it helps them understand the measurements. And then you have wet ingredients and dry ingredients. So you have to use different measuring tools. So those are really, really great ways to learn fractions. And people thought I was crazy. But I use that because one of my nieces loves to cook. And so I will show us I will go get the, you need the measuring cup that is two thirds cup. And she's like, What is two thirds cup and so I showed her what the 1/3 Cup was to 2/3 cups were in the one cup. And of course I saw you the I hit f5 minute. So it was is really it's a great way to teach fractions. So that 1/3 Cup was to third cosy 1/3. But what also happens when you're doing cooking anything, you're doing a change of state. So that is always good, too. So you're boiling water. So it goes from water from liquid to gas. And then when you're baking something, you can't reverse it, right is completely gone like. So putting together ingredients and baking a cake or brownies is really really a great way to understand chemistry. So chemistry I did okay, chemistry, I like physics better. So like I can bake a cake. But my cookies turn out like bricks. So I don't do that. I've tried several times. And my family and I have agreed that I should not do cookies. And that works for me because I really am not big on cookies, or pies. But I do cakes and peach cobbler. And that is it. So take different things there are really really very minut things, very specific things that engineers do. And they're all around you in your home, from the carpet to the paint to your furniture, the electricity coming in. Even of course the internet. You know what, Chris?
I forgot she was on here. I was about to say something. I'm not gonna say this. And I do not need this bot to help me. But
is the season of faithfulness. So I'm thankful for that in button. All my broadcasts, that's what I'd be thankful for. But engineering or STEM is always around us. If you're if you like NASA, NASA has a great channel here to follow on Periscope. They show so many different people they do they show some of their technology they developed. And, um, so many engineers live, so And of course you can catch the replay. So definitely, definitely follow NASA here on Periscope. They have a really, really cool channel. I want to say GE has a good channel on here. I haven't watched I haven't seen them broadcast in a while. And also and you think that's funny? And also um Oh good. Is it seen that? Maybe it's not seeing that on here? I forget who who has it. It may be over on Instagram. But yeah, they will do live streams and Insta Stories and posts short videos. So you can still see technology coming from large companies now on social and it's really, really cool and be able sometimes to engage with their people. Sometimes a lot of times you're not they're not able to answer questions. They're doing more of a of a videotape and not in engaging live stream. I would love for them to do more engaged in live streams. So we can ask more questions, especially when it comes to SNAM. So any questions for me about engineering construction? Chris, you get to ask me no questions because you got jokes. That's okay. One day, the joke will be on you all right, no questions. I am Michele Heyward woman of color sim civil engineer, and tech, founder of the company positive hire everybody. Have a great night and Happy National STEM Day. Bye, everybody.