What started as a father trying to reignite his nine-year-old son’s love for science in a New Orleans garage has evolved into a hands-on scientific movement that has reached over 200,000 children nationwide. Dr. Calvin Mackie, founder of STEM NOLA, transformed his family’s $100,000 investment into a nationally recognized organization that’s reshaping how young people engage with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We spoke with the former Tulane University professor about his ambitions to reach kids every weekend across America.

What do you consider your greatest achievement, and how has that influenced your work at STEM NOLA?

I really consider my greatest achievement my marriage and my family, the family that we’ve created. And the only thing I ever wanted was to have a family that loved me and a family that I could provide and love. It was out of that that STEM NOLA was born because my nine-year-old son came home one day and said he didn’t like science anymore because the teacher just talked to the board.

As a man who grew up in a house with a mom and dad, but dad was a provider, but not present, per se—my dad provided, got up in the morning, went to work, worked hard, ran his business, came home, and went to bed. So he wasn’t the lovely type, let’s go play ball type. My desire to have that really put me in tune with my family, my kids. So when my son said he wasn’t getting something at school, as the father that I wanted to be, I said we got to fix that. We went in the garage and started doing all these hands-on activities, and that eventually grew to kids all in the neighborhood coming into my garage.

Your approach seems very hands-on rather than tech-focused.

We believe hands-on means minds-on. When we started STEM NOLA, I knew how to teach my son what he needed to know. Tech could not give him the foundational skills that our kids need. The foundational skills for STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—do not come out of technology.

Can you explain your teaching philosophy?

Even if a kid is struggling in English, if English is [their] second language … when they do stuff with their hands, they build their confidence, critical thinking, their ability to collaborate, and it gets them thinking. Tech is a tool, but tech is not the first tool we run to. We are a STEM organization, meaning that our kids do science, they do technology, they do engineering, and they do math.

What’s the demographic of students you serve?

Right now, we’ve engaged over 200,000 kids, and I would say probably 85% have been urban and predominantly Black and Brown, and another 15% have been predominantly white and rural.

As a professor at Tulane for 12 years, I taught 14 Black kids … I know how to teach all kids, but I do know that the foundation that was given to me allowed me to start behind in the race of life and catch up, and then win is the foundation every kid needs.

What’s next for you and STEM NOLA?

We’re building a 30,000 square foot, $15 million STEM center in the city of New Orleans, and we want that STEM center, this innovation hub, to be the headquarters for STEM community engagement across the country. My next mountain to climb is to scale across this country, such that every weekend, we got a million kids doing STEM in their communities.

What does aging with attitude mean to you?

Aging with attitude is understanding that there’s three levels of existence. The first level is personhood—everybody’s striving to get to a level where they can take care of themselves. The next level is manhood or womanhood—getting to a point where you can take care of not only yourself, but those that you’re responsible for. Then the third level is chiefhood, or position in your life where you not only can take care of you and those that you’re responsible for, but now you can take care of the community, begin to take care of people and places that don’t even know you.

The question is, are you significant? Achieving that level of chiefhood means achieving some significance to somebody—it doesn’t have to be on a scale that I did, but the elders got to be willing to be significant to somebody or something, such that when they are no longer here, at least somebody would know their name.

Photo (top): Dr. Mackie helps a young scientist. Courtesy of STEM-NOLA.

NaBeela Washington, an emerging Black writer, holds a Master’s in Creative Writing and English from Southern New Hampshire University and Bachelor’s in Visual Advertising from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has been published in Eater, The Cincinnati Review, and others. Learn more at nabeelawashington.com.