On this episode of the You Can Be Anything series we celebrated International Day of the Girl with Barbie and a few awesome role models. We explored science with Alena Analeigh, met music legend Gloria Estefan, and upcycled with the School of Rock.

We discovered the functions of DNA with Alena Analeigh, the youngest African American to be accepted into medical school and intern for NASA. Alena is also an emerging entrepreneur and philanthropist. She started the Brown STEM Girl which is an organization aimed at providing opportunities for girls of color interested in exploring careers in STEM. After introducing herself, Alena taught us what STEM stands for, where STEM exists in our everyday lives, and why girls should get involved. In the group activity, Alena and the YCBA girls extracted DNA from fruit.

Then, Barbie and the YCBA girls move into the next segment, comparing the way DNA influences us and the way we are influenced by different cultures with their respective styles of music. The YCBA girls got to move and groove with Gloria Estefan, a world-renowned Cuban-American singer, actress, and businesswoman. Throughout the interview with Gloria, they learned about her music career and what inspires her, what ways they can become involved with music, and what it means to her to be successful.

In the next segment, we meet Drama Wyatt, a professional drummer, and School of Rock Teacher, who teaches kids and adults how to play as a band. The kids at the School of Rock upcycled household items to make instruments. They learned that making instruments out of things they would have thrown away is a fun way to help the environment and rock out to their own music.