“Well, I loved STEM and I wanted to build a community at Viewpoint for girls who have the same interests as I do.”
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n May 23, Zoe Beckman ’17, Caroline Kester ’17, Abby Kolbrenner ’19, and Chloe Kuelbs ’18 gathered in physics teacher Nancy Argano-Rush’s classroom to talk about their passion for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects and the importance of the Girls in STEM Club as a place to share that interest with other girls like them. This fall, Zoe begins studying Neuroscience at Brown University, and Caroline will embark upon the interdisciplinary major of Rollercoaster Engineering at Purdue University. Chloe loves the creative aspects of STEM and is particularly interested in medicine or engineering, while Abby is curious about all different aspects of science, especially chemistry and computer science. So, did you love science from the beginning?
CHLOE KUELBS: Yeah, I think I did. Viewpoint does a really good job early on of showing kids the exciting, creative, discovery aspect of STEM. I remember in Kindergarten I would be in Mrs. Kessler’s class digging through some “dinosaur poop” brownies to find “fossils” and other things and creating... We made recycled paper once. There’s a lot of tangible experiences that we did, where the kids actually got to create things and experiment with real things. ABBY KOLBRENNER: I wasn’t really into science until about Seventh Grade when we did a whole mix of sciences. But I do remember in Fourth Grade, we had a computer class and we had an intro to coding with a little turtle. I loved that. ZOE BECKMAN: I’ve always loved science. Math came pretty easily to me,
and then science went along with it. In Fourth or Fifth Grade, we had this one experiment where I put a banana in yeast and then it made a balloon blow up, and I remember having so much fun with that.
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CAROLINE KESTER: When I was younger, I always built stuff. I had a set of wooden blocks, and I would arrange them by size and shape and line them up by color. When I got older I started using those blocks to build everything. So I always knew I wanted to build things. And this fall I am going to start to learn to build rollercoasters.
So what about Girls in STEM? What was the motivation to establish this club at Viewpoint? CAROLINE: Abby had the original idea, and she talked with one of the
college counselors, Mr. Murray, who really liked the idea. He sent a group of us emails saying, “Hey, Abby wants to create a Girls in STEM Club.” I responded immediately. I thought, “That sounds awesome, I want in.” I thought it was a senior named Abby, and it turned out to be this freshman who I’d never met before. A brilliant, brilliant girl. We started with about six girls, and now we have about 30 members. ABBY: Well, I loved STEM and I wanted to build a community at Viewpoint
for girls who have the same interests as I do. So, basically we just try to make STEM engaging for girls and we try to reach out to the girls in Lower and Middle School. We did an activity where we built robots together. We also bring in guest speakers and motivate girls to come and to not be scared of STEM fields. CHLOE: I definitely feel like the club is a safe place for girls to get together
and not feel pressured to be the best at STEM, and just enjoy the coolness of it. But it’s also a really opportune environment for exploring things in STEM. We want to go in a more hands-on direction next year. This past year we did a lot of presenting to our club members about discoveries in STEM that were interesting, but we didn’t do too many actual experiments. So I think we want to do more where they can actually start getting involved, too, with their hands.
Above: Abby Kolbrenner ’19, Chloe Kuelbs ’18 Right Top to Bottom : Caroline Kester ’17, Chloe Kuelbs ’18, Caroline Kester ’17, Zoe Beckman ’17
ABBY: Also, I feel like since it is a STEM club
be into robotics and then I tried it in senior year we haven’t really done a lot with technology. and I thought, “Why haven’t I been doing this for So we’re going to try to do more teaching them four years?” And so get yourself out there and different basics of code to get them interested get more experiences. in that too. ZOE: That could be our slogan, “Just try STEM.” Do you have any larger goals for CAROLINE: Just try things. And don’t give up Girls in STEM or words of wisdom on yourself, even if you do stumble, because I for girls thinking about getting more stumbled a lot of times, and here I am. I’m doing involved in STEM subjects? what I love to do, I’m going to a great college that CHLOE: In the fall of my sophomore year, I I’m really proud of, and yeah, just keep going. went to a pre-collegiate science conference at Stanford. A lot of kids were giving presentations ZOE: Oh, one of the great things about STEM of their projects that they had been working on is that when you think of people in it, you might for a year or two in high school. I was listening think of Einstein doing great equations, and to one girl talk about a prosthetic arm that she the image that everyone has is very lofty and made for her dad who had lost his arm from a sometimes when you’re doing it as a teenager, disease. I was so amazed that someone so young you think, “Oh, I’m not that impressive.” But you could make something that could help someone don’t realize that you’re working towards that, or close to them so directly. I think that type of you don’t have to be a genius to actually have an connection between humans and science is impact in a STEM field. what inspires me and drives me to learn and be able to apply things. So I want us to go in the CAROLINE: We’re not geniuses, and we can teaching direction next year with the club so that see from this club that we have made an impact we can try to teach the younger girls things that on younger students, which is really an amazing they can apply to science and learn about how thing, and something that I’m really grateful for. powerful it can be. ABBY: I just find science really exciting and so CAROLINE: As for advice, I would say get more broad. And it really excites me and it makes me experience, because oftentimes when you are want to keep learning more. I feel like science dissuaded from something it’s because you don’t can do so much and I really want to be a part have enough experience with it. I didn’t think I’d of that and encourage other girls to try it too. ■ S U M M E R
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