By Nancy Williams | Project Leader
See that? A lemon powered clock made by girls in the MakerTech session! After ten weeks stuffed to the brim with STEM activities at eight different sites at the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands, we closed out the summer with Gaining STEAM on August 2nd. What a blast! Since June youth ages 9 to 18 engaged in summer STEM academy sessions that involved developing apps, creating games, rehabbing used furniture, designing and printing 3D objects, and recording spoken word with original music. Gaining STEAM showcased all the cool stuff youth participants made this summer.
Each day of GameTech, ClubApp, GrubClub, MakerTech, Poetic Beats, and FabRehab sessions was met with enthusiasm. The sessions were led by staff, professionals and artists in the community. Youth participants learned first-hand from caring, competent adults while developing tech skills along with learning to work together on a team and how to communicate with their audiences. With your gracious support, we had enough tablets and controllers so that each student had their own device during each session. Teamwork was a major component of each activity. Each team had to accomplish individual tasks them come together to present their project as a team to each other, to Club staff and other Club members on Demo Day. Demo Day was on the Friday of each week and was led by the youth participants. They setup their projects for display; determined who was going to share specific details during the presentations and handled Q&A by the crowd.
In GrubClub participants learned about local seasonal foods and taste a healthy snack each day in addition to photographing their Club garden and building a website to share what they learned. One session of GrubClub each week included knife safety where participants learned to use a knife to prepare fresh fruit and veggies. At GrubClub Demo Day, the academy participants prepared at least two of their favorite local seasonal snacks of the week for other Club members to taste as they checked out the team websites. The snacks ranged from veggie stir-fry to kale smoothies to zucchini with from-scratch dressing to organic yogurt parfaits and homemade pickles. Who said kids do not like veggies? There were never, ever any snacks left after Demo Day - never. In several sessions, we heard the kids say how much they like vegetables now. And their websites are evidence that they know more about vegetables now too.
Having the tablets to capture video reflections helps to hear in their own words what the STEM academy sessions mean to the youth who participate. Katherine was always really engaged in the activities in the STEM academy. She always wanted to do the 'extension' activities: adding video to the website, extra editing on the photos. After listening to her video reflection we find out that she likes to learn and appreciates being able to sharpen her technology skills during the summer. And STEM Academy turned out to not be as boring as she thought it would be.
Teens in FabRehab used apps on the iPads and Android tablets to redesign each showcase space for Gaining STEAM; transforming the Boys & Girls Club into a tech lounge filled with art by Club Youth. For several weeks the group of mostly males rode the Club van with Ms. Deborah to the Union for Contemporary Art, local arts organization, to work on the furniture donated by CORT. The resulting artwork was so impressive to the staff and other youth during the Gaining STEAM showcase that the furniture has become a permanent part of the teen center. You can see the pride in the teens' faces whenever they tell the stories behind their designs.
Gaining STEAM was educational, informative and fun for kids and adults. Because every station was interactive, everyone had something fun to do and learn. The 3D printing station was unbelieveable for many visitors. Everything was made by kids in STEM academy sessions. Our guest speaker, Dr. Jorge Zuniga, a researcher who makes 3D prosthetics, came to us because of an email sent to him by Adam, a 10 year old participant in a MakerTech session that uses a prosthetic hand. Because his peers were using Tinkercad to design and a MakerBot to print the designs, Adam thought that Dr. Zuniga would be a good guest speaker, would inspire the other kids and would be impressed by what he and the other youth were doing. All of the above were so true that Dr. Zuniga offered to share his research with kids, parents and staff at Gaining STEAM before he presented it at NASA and Johns Hopkins. So exciting!
Thank you so much for your support. Without you Gaining STEAM and the summer STEM academies would not be possible! It has made such a difference. There are youth who did not even know what STEM meant that can now use software to develop apps; who can design and print an original and useful 3D object; who had never held a tablet but can now capture and edit photos and video as well as develop a website to share that content. We also have new supporters offering STEM classes to our youth and donating goods and services. You made Gaining STEAM and the summer of STEM amazing.
After the event each youth left with a commemorative drawstring bag and USB storage drive for their digital portfolios. To use the words of one the female teens witnessing the calm in the room after the cafeteria of middle school students had eaten their sixth skillet of veggie stir fry, "Something is different in here. It's good. We should do this all of the time." You made this happen. In gratitude and appreciation, we hope that you continue to help us 'do this all of the time'.
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