S.T.E.M Loteria
This project was inspired by the original Loteria game, a very popular Mexican game played by people of all ages. The idea was to incorporate STEM related terms to encourage the next generation of Latinx scientist to feel welcomed and represented. While making it, I realized the potential impact of this game. Knowing how important a game like this would be for my community and to address systemic issue sin STEM and academia.
The goal of this project was to address the issue of the lack of gender and race intersectional diversity in STEM fields. The game itself contains terms in both Spanish and English or just Spanish, in order to reach to my target audience of Latine interested in STEM fields.
Call for Latino/a/x in S.T.E.M!
Science is a field for discovering and understanding of the world around us, but historically this field has excluded groups like women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. The racial gap in higher education is deepened in STEM with Latino/a/x as severely underrepresented in undergraduate and graduate STEM programs and are not sufficiently exposed to STEM subjects at the K-12 Levels. These students are the largest minority group in the public school system, but they score lower than national averages on math and science achievement tests and enroll at significantly lower levels.
However, Latino/a/x populations up 17% of the total jobs but make up the minority in STEM fields, with 8% (Pew Research 2021), but why?
Little to no representation and visibility in the field, which leads to lack of motivation.
Lack of mentorship and support.
Financial instability and familial responsibilities.
In order to remove these hurdles that keep Latino/a/x in STEM, we need to make programs that provide representative mentorship, financial support and more Latino/a/x advisors, mentors and professors!
Institutions must provide to ensure equity and diversity, so check your local school or university and ask what program/clubs/initiatives exist and maybe even start one yourself!
This game was made so kids that are systemically excluded can find a place in STEM with a familiar board game. So if you are an educator, parent, or student and want to use the game, please show the game night under #stemloteria or send me pictures. If you also have recommendations or would like to collaborate, please contact me.
How do we change this?
Initiatives around the country have programs directed at helping underrepresented minority students (URMs). Some of the programs to support and learn more about:
Why Loteria?
Well, I started this game with the purpose of increasing visibility of Latino/a/xs in STEM, saying we are here!
Loteria is a Mexican game played by families, my S.T.E.M Loteria aims to introduce these terms/ideas to Latinx groups. The goal is to increase the engagement and retainment of marginalized groups in STEM. The game also addresses the lack of diversity, including intersectionality, and how this further affects these marginalized groups.
I got the inspiration from the NASA “space” Lotería:
I hope you can enjoy this game and if you have any questions please contact me!
This game content is offered under a CC Attribution Links to an external site. license. Content in this page can be considered under this license unless otherwise noted. The artwork and everything in the game is done by Sofia Gomez. If any use or distribution of the materials is present, you must contact the author.
