To spark interest in STEM in the next generation of female high school students, the Girls in STEM club began organizing and taking monthly trips to TEMS starting in February, where they mentor and support middle school students while introducing them to topics and careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Junior and club vice president Zaina Sohail aims to promote an encouraging environment that motivates young girls to engage in fields in which they are underrepresented and draws attention to opportunities available for aspiring STEM students at Conestoga.
“The reason why we established Girls in STEM was that we noticed a lot of girls told us that in middle school, they didn’t have these opportunities (and) many clubs,” Sohail said. “I think a reason why a lot of girls tend to join our club is that we tend to be as active as possible in having these events for the girls, and we’ve mostly gotten positive feedback so far.”
On the club’s first trip on Feb. 11, junior and president Miya Cao and senior and officer Juliana Yao presented to the rising freshmen about STEM-related courses and clubs that are available at Conestoga. They encouraged students to take engineering classes and join clubs like Science Olympiad, Robotics and computer science.
On other trips, club members have performed labs with the students, such as a popping boba lab, where middle school students learned how to make edible popping boba using fruit juices and molecular gastronomy. Freshman Sana Bhattacharyya enjoys interacting with the middle school students and talking to them about her high school experience.
“We got to make popping boba, and we had an initial presentation where our president walked through the experiment and explained a little bit more about the chemistry of the experiment. It was really fun overall,” Bhattacharyya said. “We got to hang out with the middle schoolers and talk to them and do the experiment.”
To prepare, the officers and club members host a meeting prior to the visit to share ideas about what to teach the middle school students and create a presentation based on these ideas. All members are encouraged to contribute ideas during these brainstorming sessions.
“The meetings that we do are very open, and we get to just discuss it as a group. There’s not one person deciding everything,” Bhattacharya said. “It’s a very open environment where we can all discuss and find what would be the most fun and informative.”
The club will continue taking trips to TEMS and hosting meetings to prepare activities for the middle school students. Sohail has found the outreach trips to be effective, noting a consistent number of participants at every event they hosted so far.
“We’ve always had at least 20 people at our events,” Sohail said. “There’s always good turnout, and the girls always end up bringing more people the next time. I would say that it’s been pretty successful.”
Bailey Kreszswick can be reached at [email protected].
Shrija Krishnan can be reached at [email protected].
