Temple Elementary School student Chloe Mackensen puts dowels into a rotating wheel, putting as many as will fit, in her attempt to make the most efficient windmill she can.
University of New Hampshire junior Sawyer Cawthern of Sharon watches her, asking questions about her design.
“Why so many?” Cawthern asks.
Mackensen considers. “More blades means more power?” she replies, making it a question.
“Well, we’ll have to test it and see,” Cawthern replies.
That’s what the University of New Hampshire’s “STEMbassador” program is all about – letting kids pose questions, test their answers and come to their own conclusions.
On Saturday, children from South Meadow School, Great Brook School, and ConVal’s elementary branches all had the opportunity to try out a variety of different experiments in various STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – fields. They built structurally sound Jenga towers, designed protective shields for eggs dropped from drones and programmed a robot to run mazes of their own creation.
This is the fourth year South Meadow School has hosted the UNH STEMbassadors for a day, since the program was first created in 2015, and the program has become increasingly popular, SMS Principal Anne O’Bryant said Saturday.
In addition to the activities, students are also introduced to the ambassadors themselves, college students in STEM majors who can talk to them about what they’re studying and what careers they’re considering. It’s a way to give science and it’s real-world applications a face, O’Bryant said.
“The mentorship is wonderful. It’s really the best part of it,” she said. “It just gets kids thinking at a young age, ‘These are the things we can do, these are the things we could be working on.’”
Cawthern, a ConVal graduate, said she was immediately interested in the STEMbassador program, from the time she first toured UNH. But coming back to her own school to mentor is especially meaningful.
“It means a little more,” she said. “You always feel the impact when you’re talking to kids, but it does mean a little more when it’s where you’re from.”
Cawthern said her favorite part of the experience is when she can see things click for her mentees – at the start of the day, many are shy or reserved, but begin to open up when it comes to advocating for their designs, or arguing about the best plan to pursue.
“You can see them become more engaged. It’s exciting to see at the end of the activity that they all want to keep going,” Cawthern said.
It’s not always the activities in which students have the most success that are the most memorable. South Meadow School student Paul Simpson said his favorite activity of the day was the egg drop.
“Even though I wasn’t that good at it,” he said.
Cawthern, a chemistry major who’s interested in a career in pharmacology research, said she had her own science teachers who made her interested in the field, but would have liked to have a program like the STEMbassadors when she was in elementary or middle school.
“I didn’t know anything about engineering before I entered college,” Cawthern said. “This shows them a little of these fields and how they’re applied to real-life things.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.