As the cherry blossoms bloom and the trees turn to green, STEM activities hit full steam as students pursue their STEM interests with joy and determination. Last Friday, NSTEM club members, Josie Filan, Amalys Zahrouni, Irene Back, Cici Yu, Kaylie McCabe, Daniella Madsen, Lucy Buchanan, and Sammi Cates, visited Penn Mont academy. A private Montessori school, to participate in a meaningful time with the kids. 

This educational opportunity and bonding experience was a great opportunity for Grier students to mentor young scientists. They helped the kids learn how to build the strongest bridges with popsicle sticks and created a chemical reaction to blow up balloons using some basic and intrinsic engineering knowledge. 

Our Grier girls strived not to teach by words but to put their STEM knowledge into kind and accessible strategies to make sure every young student could comprehend and enjoy. The kids really began to understand the concepts, with one even asking, “Can I put these blue tags to make a joint to make the bridge stronger?” That little one is definitely a future engineer and our students were able to spark that curiosity in them. 

Cici Yu, a 9th grader at Grier, said that above all, the kids were “curious” and truly were engaged in the experiments. 

Marie Curie once said, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” This is the spirit that these STEM-related trips aim to build in the community. They provide a better way to understand the world starting from a young age.