Keynote
Presented By Aster Bekele
Long before the word “Asset Based” became everyday vocabulary, Aster Bekele was educated by a 4th grader in the 2004-2005 school year on how to start Asset Based STEAM Education. Based on this principle, she founded Felege Hiywot Center (FHC), which is a Youth Led agriculture-based STEAM program. Since her background is in Chemistry, she made Agriculture based partnership to be a priority. Starting with her co-workers at Eli Lilly and Co, she established partnerships with Purdue University Extension Marion County, Purdue College of Agriculture, Center for Earth and Environmental Science, Major Tool and Machine, Farm Bureau and many other community organizations and individual volunteers.
She talks about her complete transformation in using Scientific Theory in everyday social issues. She learns how the mainstream education system fails to consider the ways that interactions and feedback loop produces outcomes. While interaction and feedback loop can be challenging, she found the Scientific Theory to help create boundaries for sufficient flexibility to adapt multiple scenarios the youth come up with.
This Scientific Theory Based Framework, initiated and implemented with youth as partners has been FHC’s mission since its inception in 2004. She believes the implementation of this Framework into the existing education model, allows especially minority youth to succeed in higher levels of education as well as discover their full potential as adults.
Abstract
In this session, Aster Bekele will interrogate the institution’s role in highlighting community voice in terms of STEM and thinking of the scientific method as a way to combat systemic issues that historically disenfranchised populations of people face. The speaker will also address how STEM situates in her identity and the work that she contributed to the community.