On Wednesday, March 23rd, Brownell Talbot students participated in JuSTEMagine’s first-annual Nebraska Advocacy Conference.

In 2019, I co-founded JuSTEMagine with my classmates at BT. We are a service organization that aims to promote STEM and Social-Emotional Learning educational communities in Nebraska and beyond.

Planning started for the conference in July, when JuSTEMagine’s members connected with the Student Association for STEM Advocacy (SASA). SASA is an organization that helps students host state-level advocacy conferences. I had previously participated in their National Advocacy Conference alongside my robotics teammates after receiving a grant from the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation to do so based on winning Google’s Community Award Online Challenge.

After the National Advocacy Conference, we wanted to continue working with SASA, which pushed us to organize the Nebraska Advocacy Conference. A planning committee was formed among members of JuSTEMagine. BT students Riley Hawkins (’22), Josh Randolph (’22), Claire Cenovic (’23), Francesca Vidal (’24), and Akshay Mehta (’22) were all part of this committee. We planned training sessions, contacted State Senators, organized media visits, and coordinated our conference at the Capitol.

Before the conference, all participants attended two 2-hour training sessions where we heard from speakers including Prairie STEM CEO Alan Wang, former Nebraska Senator and Associate Executive Director/Government Relations Director at Nebraska Association of School Boards Colby Coash, and Robotics Education and Competition Foundation Team Engagement Manager Brandi Bolinger. SASA’s Steve Hyer also spoke with participants about effective advocacy.

During the conference, we began with a guided tour of the Nebraska Capitol and Supreme Court, learning the history of these institutions. The rest of the day included media interviews and meetings with Senators. Because they could not attend in-person, members of JuSTEMagine who attend Millard North participated in virtual advocacy meetings during the day.

The conference’s main focus was promoting the passage of LB 1112. This bill, also known as the Computer Science and Technology Act, would require Nebraska students to take a semester-long computer science class as a graduation requirement. During our meetings with Senators, JuSTEMagine’s members stressed the importance of passing LB 1112 by using personal stories and statistics. Participants also spoke about robotics education, soft skill development, preparing students for a 21st-century workforce, the presence of programming in both STEM and humanities fields, and brain drain during our meetings.

I was pleasantly surprised by the willingness of State Senators to take our meetings and discuss LB 1112. Our group met with a handful of State Senators, all of whom had thoughtful conversations with us. The State Senators made it possible for us to voice our thoughts and more fully engage ourselves in our government, which we are all incredibly thankful for.

Looking to the future, there are already plans for this event to return next year. Hopefully, this conference can be a platform for student voices for years to come.