Woodgrove High School has dozens of unique, student-made and -run clubs. As of this year, Woodgrove and Mountain View Elementary now share one of those many. STEM Mentors is a new club that emerged this year, founded by two senior students, Thatcher Thomas and Joey Harar, who have a passion for the sciences and teaching it to others. It is unique in that it involves frequent hands-on work with elementary school classes, where Thomas, Harar, and their team of Woodgrove students teach STEM-related subjects and lessons to 3rd, 4th and 5th graders.
Having a passion for the sciences and learning is a really exciting thing for students of any age. STEM Mentors aims to help both high schoolers and elementary schoolers kindle that passion. Thomas, who came up with the original idea and is Co-President of the club, pointed out that for him, “it took a very long time to figure out I wanted to do something in STEM…our mission is to get younger students interested in STEM sooner.” To build on that interest, the club gives STEM-related activities and lessons to Mountain View students, with the hopes that they can realize and maintain this passion earlier on. Harar, the Co-President of the club, mentioned, “It was his [Thomas’] idea, but when he came to me about it, I was super excited to help with the project.” Harar shares a similar passion for STEM, and was happy to join Thatcher in developing the approach to this. Thomas reflected on the fact that he chose to focus the club and activities on STEM, because that is a shared passion among Harar, Thomas and all the interested members.
The high schoolers can benefit from this club as much as the elementary schoolers, however, because it is an opportunity to expand skills, interests and leadership in the high school students as well. Mrs. Sara Miller, the sponsor of the new club, pointed out the benefits to both sides that the club brings, and said the club “not only reinforces the STEM concepts for the mentors but also helps to spark curiosity and excitement about learning in the younger students.” Some of this development for the students comes in teaching lessons, and some comes from developing said lessons. The format of the club, as Harar puts it, is “planning the lessons for our meetings at Mountain View and brainstorming things that we could do better.” Lessons are planned in early morning meetings at Woodgrove and on the members’ own time. Then, once every two weeks, the Mentors go into a new classroom “at Mountain View, [and] they teach the lesson and lead activities,” according to Thomas. Harar and Thomas work closely with their classmates to curate specific lesson plans that involve some kind of activity and still hold educational value to the younger students. So far, lesson plans have included teaching the basics of aerospace through presentations and discussion, then giving the kids opportunities to create their own paper airplane and use the engineering design process.
In setting up the club, Thomas and Harar came to Miller to be the sponsor, and Miller very willingly said yes. Although she is there to facilitate Woodgrove meetings and provide support, she emphasized how “the club operates entirely under student leadership,” and the students “take full ownership of the club’s initiatives and activities.” Because of this nature, one of the biggest challenges in teaching the first lesson was coordinating schedules with Mountain View, as it takes preparation on both sides. Other aspects of the club, though, have been operating very smoothly since then, because “with feedback from our members and learning as we go along, things have gotten a lot easier,” as Harar put it. This is directly reflective of how the club provides developmental opportunities to the Mentors themselves, as they figure out how to best provide leadership to younger students.
Keeping the kids engaged is the most important part of the whole process, because nurturing an early interest in STEM means “developing the next generation of engineers, scientists and innovators,” said Miller. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Math fields are all important in such an age of human history as this, and STEM Mentors is an inspiring and local step toward that.