STEM Days bring mentors, students together

When Aristotle wrote “for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them,” he probably didn’t envision children designing bridges, floating boats and using lemons as batteries to generate power.

However, it was those very same ideas of experiential learning that were put to full use at a STEM Day event in the SUNY Poly Student Center multipurpose room recently. STEM Days are held 2-3 times a year, giving area school children the opportunity to take part in a series of workshops that bring the foundations of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math to life and hopefully spark or help sustain a lifelong love of these disciplines.

“I like to have activities for students where the success is the process they use to discover something. They’re discovering that they can solve a problem with just materials, not necessarily a test,” said Elizabeth Rossi, SUNY Poly K-12 Outreach Coordinator. “It makes them realize how gratifying problem solving is. It’s more about how you do it than it is the outcome of what you do.”

Through STEM-based activities, Rossi says students learn the critical skill of thinking on their feet as well as what it’s like to work together as a team under a deadline; something she notes is very important in the world of engineering.

The 85 students at the spring event, from Conkling, Hughes and Watson Williams Elementary Schools in Utica, were guided through the various activities and workshop stations by SUNY Poly engineering students, eager to share their own love of all things STEM with these young minds.

“Like me, the undergraduate STEM students see themselves in these children,” Rossi said. “They realize the pipeline has to be supported. That means nurturing their creativity, getting these kids ready to do the kinds of things the undergrads are doing. In a way, it’s about making things better for the next generation.”

Rita Sobhy, a junior majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Applied Mathematics, is president of the SUNY Poly chapter of Society of Women Engineers (SWE). She says that many of the students in the organization had ideas for hands-on activities and wanted a community service event to put them to use in, but connecting with elementary students was a challenge. That’s when they teamed up with Elizabeth Rossi to put their workshop ideas to use at STEM Day.

“They enjoy their time. Kids always like to do anything hands-on as opposed to just reading and writing in a classroom. When they were testing lemon batteries and balloon cars, the kids were incredibly interested,” Sobhy said. “They were coming up with different ideas of what else could be done and how, and asking all sorts of questions to support their ideas.”

Communication between student and teacher can sometimes become a stumbling block if those dialogues are not easily opened. However, Sobhy says college students taking on the role of mentor to students who are roughly ten years younger changes the dynamic of learning for the elementary school students.

“There’s a relatability for these kids because, although we’re in college, we’re closer to their age than their parents or teachers might be,” Sobhy said. “It’s nice to see the smiles on their faces when they go home. A lot of kids go home and when a parent asks what they did, they say ‘nothing.’ But with this, they certainly can’t go home and say ‘nothing.’”

Another of the mentors on hand was Bianca Little, a junior majoring in Civil Engineering and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). After helping with the morning’s set-up, Little worked with students at the bridge building station.

“The students were given a limited amount of supplies like straws, paper clips, tape, and pipe cleaners, and had to build a bridge that could hold weight,” she explained. “We then used Styrofoam coffee cups with loose change in them as the weight to test the threshold of the bridges they built.”

Little says SUNY Poly’s STEM Days introduce kids to the same subjects she has always loved and, if they have as much fun as she did, encourage their continued study and career choices.

“I’m not quite sure what pushes girls away from STEM fields, but I think things like this really give them a taste of it and hopefully keep them interested enough to pursue it,” she said. “The challenge is what I personally like best about STEM. I like having a challenge and figuring out how to overcome it. I hope they do too.”