Reimagining STEM for kids
USD senior Taylor Brown unpacks STEM topics in her children’s book
YANA KOURETAS / FEATURE EDITOR / THE USD VISTA
During much of Taylor Brown’s adventurous summer spent in Sweden, she auctioned her time off between conducting research in a lab and writing a children’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) alphabet book — two seemingly different activities that Brown managed to interconnect. A senior industrial and systems engineering student at USD, Brown began the process of writing and assembling the children’s book during this past summer in Sweden. Her book titled, “What do you know about STEM?”, sought to introduce STEM-related topics to younger audiences, in a way that could be easily processed and understood.
Over the course of two and a half months, many manuscript drafts later, and the utilization of Canva for illustrations and images, Brown logged onto Amazon and became a self-published author.
“I have always wanted to write a children’s book ever since I was a child. It was something that my mom encouraged me to do for a while and I was just pushing it off. Over the summer I had an internship in Sweden and I talked to my mom and I was like ‘I’m kind of bored after work and I don’t know what to do,’” Brown said. And her mom said, “‘Oh, you should get started on writing your book.’”
Because she found out that self-publishing on Amazon was super easy.
When brainstorming what kind of children’s book Brown wanted to make, she decided to create an alphabet book because it was the option where she could generate the greatest range of ideas and information within STEM. Brown stressed the significance of her approach: introducing an assortment of things one could do, topics to learn about, and cool facts in STEM fields and careers.
“The reason why I decided to do STEM was because I noticed that I wasn’t really introduced to the idea of being an engineer until I was in high school,” Brown said. “And I thought that this idea should be introduced sooner and I thought the best way to introduce this topic in a fun, creative way would be to make a children’s book targeted for young kids so they could get excited about it and get more interested and maybe start trying a little bit harder in their science class, and it can sprout from there.”
Although writing a children’s alphabet book might seem like a direct process, as a current senior in college, Brown had to reimagine herself in her five-year-old shoes – one of the more difficult tasks of the entire undertaking. Consequently, Brown took more complex concepts and associated them with more familiar terms that a child would likely know.
“I was just trying to put my head in the space of a child; like what would I find interesting, what’s interesting and cool to me, what do I want to learn about, what can I handle, that was probably the most challenging part; leaving out the technical words and keeping it light and fun,” Brown said. “So for example, ‘A’ is for astronaut, so that is a career they can follow, but ‘B,’ is for bear, which is an animal, so that is kind of getting them interested in animals, and leading them into veterinary medicine.”
In addition to wanting to serve her passion and interest in STEM through this book, Brown is equally as passionate about STEM outreach. For her, a children’s book symbolizes a great possibility: having the space to ensure that underrepresented individuals and people of color in STEM could be introduced as early as possible to younger audiences.
“I am currently Vice President of USD’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers and one of their main mission statements is to increase the amount of underrepresented people in engineering roles,” Brown said. “So I feel like this is me contributing to that goal by preaching to younger kids and getting them excited about STEM and showing them that they can do it too and that it’s fun and interesting, and not something scary.”
Moving forward, Brown looks to continue her book-making ventures, especially with children’s alphabet books. However, for her next project, she is interested in catering to a slightly older audience, one that is looking at potential career paths in STEM. Additionally, Brown plans to continue to highlight underrepresented, established individuals in STEM professions, so that younger generations can look up to successful women, engineers, and people of color.
The experience of writing and publishing a book is like no other. Through something outwardly simplistic, such as a children’s book, Brown used a lens to apply her experiences as an engineer and looked at what she wishes she would have known about the field growing up. She leveraged her power to write and saw it as an opportunity and a responsibility to bring accessible information to a younger audience.