On the Right Track

Hello Spark-Y Family!

We are the Right Track Summer Internship Team which consists of Jaraide Dassovi (Lead), Navious Bogan, Best Yang, and Eh Ler Vang. This summer our team was responsible for 3 general projects, Harold Mezile YMCA North, STEM Saturday and Harvest Best Academy! Outside of these projects, we’ve had a blast on the field trip to Lake Bde Maka Ska and enhancing our professional development skills in weekly sessions. Meet our team members and the experiences that impacted us most!

Hello my name is Best Yang an intern at Spark-Y that started working this summer.

Here at Spark-Y we work to benefit and help the community so that they can learn about STEM and planting in general. Earlier this summer me and some of my co-workers went to City Hall to plant some flowers at the entrance of the building.

City Hall asked if we could help them by planting some new flowers at the front door of the building. When me and my coworkers were told about the plans to plant flowers at City Hall I was feeling excited to go there because I never went to City Hall in my entire life before until now. When we went to City Hall it was a very hot day out in the sun with little to no shade to hide under. By the end of the day we were all tired being out in the sun and just wanted to go to an area with AC.

This project helps the city in the long run by making sure that pollinators like bees will stick around the area and have pollen and nectar to feed on. I believe that by doing this I can help pollinators by providing pollen and nectar. Something that I learned from this is how to plant flowers because I never planted one before. Also by making pollinator  gardens you are providing resources to pollinators which will help them accomplish the great work they do! - Best Yang

Hello my name is Navious Bogan and I'm a summer intern for Spark-Y. During the Bde Maka Ska field trip, I learned how to canoe in under 20 minutes. I faced my fear of being in the middle of a large body of water. In my time while working for Spark-Y I did a wide variety of things, I planted at the City Hall, and maintained the YMCA aquaponics systems this system is located at Harold Mezile North Community YMCA. I cleaned out the system and tested the water to make sure everything was okay.  One of my favorite projects was the Cargill project where volunteers help build STEM kits. The STEM kits that were being built were the zombie apocalypse, there used for building vegetables such as Broccoli,Pea, and more. This project was held at Cargill, Inc. in Wayzata, MN.

 - Navious bogan

”It was very hot” - Eh Ler 

Building Joy

This season Spark-Y reached a more dynamic age range 1st-8th grade. Our summer programming focused on bridging environmental stewardship with a healthy lifestyle. We incorporated this education by engaging the scholars in agricultural practices and lessons on a small scale, such as gardening and understanding the cultural and nutritional value of fresh produce. One of the most popular lessons being produce dissections!

One of the deliverables for the Summer Internship Right Track Team is to design and build a school garden at Harvest Best Academy. We have spent a total of 4 days building this raised bed. Most days were bright and sunny but we did get rained on twice! It has been a joy watching the Right Track Interns learn new, or enhance, their hard skills working with tools such as drills and learning how to assemble a build using a blueprint. As we wrap up this build, we are happy to say the Special Education Department will be utilizing the garden during the 2022-23 school year! Thank you to the Community Education Team Summer Interns and Jordan Bergstrom, Spark-Y Sustainable Systems Manager, for their support and infectious enthusiasm to complete this project! - Grace Cisneros, Sustainability Educator and Right Track Staff Lead.

STEM Enrichment at Friendship Academy

The following blog post was written by Andrew Rubin Co-Teacher at Spark-Y’s partnership with Friendship Academy, a twice-per-week STEM Enrichment program for elementary youth.

We’ve been having a blast at Friendship Academy during our Enrichment Spark-Y class! While most students were interested in STEM and sustainability before signing up, our hands-on, team-building activities have made the young scholars even more fascinated with all things science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

It may come as no surprise that making slime - using chemistry to bond glue to an activator - was very, very popular. Taliyah S, 3rd grade, put it best when she said, “I loved making slime because it’s fun and we can do it as a group.” Other students agreed how important it was to work together, as well. Also, of course, they simply liked it because, “I’m not going to lie…I just wanted to play with it after we were done,” remarked Nhia M, 9 years old. That’s okay, too!

We were perhaps most impressed with the reasons why so many students wanted to try out new experiments, learn more about STEM, and gain more knowledge. Most spoke about the future, especially involving their families or communities. One such student was Kaben P., 3rd grade, who said, “ I want to be able to grow my own food and feed my family without going to the grocery store.” Noel T, took it one step further by including the entire planet, “I liked learning about plants because they help the Earth and I really want to help the Earth, too.” That’s one of our goals, too! He later added, “I want to get really smart so I can do well in college.”

Whether it was water testing, engineering a bridge with popsicle sticks, creating crystals, or building marshmallow catapults, we had so much joy working together and learning. Taliyah S eloquently stated, “It’s very noisy but it’s really fun for creative and artistic kids. We can take turns.”

We look forward to building our very own aquaponics system in the classroom and sharing our adventures with you! 

The Latest and Greatest at Spark-Y

The past year has been one of navigating unknowns and growth for us at Spark-Y -- as it has been for many others. While the school year had a handful more Zoom calls than we had anticipated, we were able to pivot our programs and still reach 2,000 youth across all our programs throughout the school year. We are so proud of how we have grown as an organization, which is a testament to our amazing and dedicated staff. As we now gear up for summer programming we want to give some highlights of what we have done so far as well as what’s to come.

The Latest and Greatest: 

Spark-Y was featured in KARE 11 for our work with the City of Minneapolis creating a Rain Garden

At the end of May, we brought together around 100 youth and community members to transform the drainage basin next to Edison High School into a rain garden. We were offered the opportunity to take over this project by the City of Minneapolis and partnered with Great River Greening along the way, who really helped us make this project a reality. The goal of this project was to not only offer a paid, hands-on educational experience for the youth who participated but to continue involving the nearby community for the years ahead and continue a pipeline for youth to enter the workforce. Watch Kare 11's Belinda Jensen Interview our executive director, Zach Robinson and Great River Greening's Executive Director, Keith Parker on the significance and impact of the project. 

Interns maintaining the rain garden at the Holland Basin site.

Mobile Innovation Lab 

We have partnered with the Northside STEM district to facilitate the curriculum for The Mobile Innovation Lab aka “The BEAST” for 4 sessions throughout the summer. The BEAST is a mobile bus that innovates STEM educational experiences in North Minneapolis and beyond. By providing an accessible opportunity for youth to engage with hands-on STEM education, programming for “The Beast” centers around the principles of Maker Education and creates “sandbox experiences” where creativity and innovation come effortlessly, and there is ample opportunity for mastery and exploration. Students have the opportunity to engage with many different activity stations while on The BEAST ranging from 3D printing to electronics & circuitry. 

Annual Spark-Y Internship 

Our Annual Spark-Y Internship just kicked off! This internship gives youth the opportunity to develop personal and professional skills with a focus on sustainability and entrepreneurship. Upon completing the program students will have had a variety of real life experiences that will help strengthen their resumes and expand their understanding of what it means to be an urban steward for sustainability. The projects in this internship focus on annual and perennial plant care, vegetable production, community engagement, aquaponics, fish and plant care, restoration, and beautification of urban areas. 

Interns providing garden maintenance at a partner school, Friendship Academy.

Internship Open House 

Join us for our internship open house on August 5th at 5pm! This will take place at our headquarters 681 17th Ave NE Unit 101, Minneapolis, MN.