The Berkeley Lab Director’s Apprenticeship Program (BLDAP) for high school students seeks to remove systemic barriers, such as a lack of access to professional networks and work-based opportunities, by providing strong connections to the scientific community at Berkeley Lab. BLDAP is a project-based high school STEM apprenticeship program that will provide an opportunity for underrepresented students in STEM to develop 21st century skills, learn about Berkeley Lab’s business and research activities, receive college and career guidance, and develop a STEM network in a real-life work environment.
Our cohort of around 20 students will complete an intro to Python/data science course as part of the program. The students will be entering the program with little to no experience coding. The curriculum will cover the following topics: data types, variables, lists, conditionals, loops, numpy arrays, pandas (input/output of dataframes, indexing, slicing, manipulating columns, statistics, various functions for exploratory data analysis), and data visualization with matplotlib. Towards the end of the program, students will apply their knowledge on data sets using data from various Berkeley Lab research projects.
We are seeking TAs for our intro to Python/data science course. TAs will work with small groups of students, answering their questions and providing guidance as they work through coding exercises using Jupyter notebooks. TAs will also be asked to grade and provide feedback for weekly challenge notebooks collected from students.
The program runs from June 21st to July 28th. The intro to Python/data science courses are scheduled to take place in the mornings, Monday through Thursday, from 9:30 am to 11:30 am. Volunteers can sign up for any dates/times that work best for them. The program will be on site COVID protocols permitting, but volunteers are welcome to join remotely via Zoom.
All volunteers participating in K-12 programs must complete an online working with minors course (~90 minutes), sign and submit a CANRA form, and pass a background check.
For any questions please contact K-12 Content and Instruction Coordinator, Alisa Bettale (abettale@lbl.gov).
