Imagine a summer where curiosity blossoms, creativity flourishes, and connections are built. That's exactly what Brite Summer 2025 offered, bringing together youth from across the United States and globally for an unforgettable online adventure. Brite Summer 2025 was an online science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) program for youth entering 7th-10th grade hosted by NGCP in partnership with Smart Girls HQ. Brite was designed to spark curiosity, foster creativity, and build an online community, all while having fun doing STEAM projects and meeting STEAM professionals. The 2025 program builds off past research and evaluation learnings from BRITE Girls Online STEM Practices: Building Relevance and Identity to Transform Experiences, a National Science Foundation-funded grant led by Florida State University in partnership with NGCP, Smart Girls HQ, and SJLR Solutions. 

The one-week program, which ran for three hours each day from July 21 to 25, 2025, reached approximately 70 youth, mostly self-identifying girls. Our theme was Explore STEAM: Creativity and Curiosity. Throughout the week, young people engaged in collaborative and hands-on activities and talked with role models with unique, interdisciplinary career pathways. Youth met four role models on Zoom during the program, including Beata Mierzwa, Molecular Biologist and Science Artist; Caeley Looney, Aerospace Engineer and CEO & Editor in Chief, Reinvented Magazine; Safoura Seddighin, Co-Founder, Fabinnov Fablab; and Jessica Hua, Ecologist and Science Communicator. They learned about the personal and professional aspects of each role model’s journey through games and conversation, including each role model's early life experiences, hobbies and interests outside of STEAM, challenges and barriers they faced, and how they persevered. Participating youth were able to ask their own questions – both personal and professional – to the role models live on Zoom, through Zoom’s chat, as well as on the Brite platform.

“Meeting role models, Q&A's, and activities, but my takeaways are that I can be anything I please in STEM, like a Food Scientist, Fashion Scientist, or a Sci-fi Architect.” - Brite Participant

NGCP recruited seven informal STEAM education programs to participate as our cohort of “Brite Groups” in 2025, including Girls Empowered for More Society, Inc., Koinonia Community Solutions, NC State Imhotep Academy, Priestley Forsyth Memorial Library, STEAM Street, The New Tenth Foundation, and Yes Girls Create Inc. Each Brite Group facilitated the daily icebreakers and hands-on activities for their group. Educators from each group participated in an online training and received the Brite Educator Guide, a curricular resource for implementing all Brite activities and discussions, developed by NGCP. 

During Brite, youth demonstrated their creative thinking skills through icebreakers, such as a technology scavenger hunt, where they identified and reflected on technology they could not live without. Young people also worked on hands-on STEAM projects, such as designing a science-inspired fashion item and creating a graphic novel to communicate STEAM concepts. Girls shared their work via a video or image on the Interactive Project Gallery, and through likes and comments, peers, educators, and role models recognized girls’ insights and final projects.

Brite wasn't just about learning; it was about building a community. Youth from across the Brite Groups bonded during a large Community Gathering where they discussed their dream jobs and played a spirited "Would You Rather" game that challenged them to think about diverse STEAM professions in a new way. Outside the large group gatherings, they continued to bond through discussions about their interests, taste in music, and more on the Brite Forum.

To celebrate the week, youth shared their learnings and projects during “Brite Fest,” a youth-led project showcase held at the end of the week on Zoom. Each Brite Group made a slide to highlight their favorite projects and moments from the week, and a few volunteers shared on behalf of their group. One participant said, “I like how much I got to draw and design”. Another participant shared a few words that described Brite for her group: “Enlightening, inspiring, innovate, and discovery”. Others shared in the chat that they enjoyed learning about role models, talking with peers, meeting new people, and combining art and science.

Brite Summer 2025 was a week for youth to connect with STEAM and each other in an online community, showcase creativity and self-expression, and learn about and with diverse STEAM role models. To learn about future offerings of Brite Summer, stay tuned for updates via the NGCP newsletter and social media.

“My highlight is getting to see and meet many people in different careers and the journeys they took.” - Brite Participant

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