Sophomores Audrey Han and Zoey Li are the co-presidents and founders of the Westlake chapter of the National STEM Honor Society (NSTEM) this school year. They started the club to provide students with opportunities at school to learn more about science, technology, engineering or math through experiments and activities, and also outside of school through summer programs and competition preparation.

“We wanted a way to combine teaching kids about STEM with fun activities and also volunteering,” Han said. “We try to balance [meetings] out, [with] a good mix between experiments and more educational things such as competition programs.”

At the NSTEM meeting Jan. 17, officers began the meeting by announcing a clothing drive volunteer opportunity with the Miracle Foundation before moving into a quick lesson about electricity and voltage. Club members then moved onto a related experiment that showed the concepts of the lesson, using pennies, salt and vinegar to create an electrical current to power an LED light.

In addition to learning lessons and performing related experiments, the club also attempts to provide opportunities to feed students’ interest in science, technology, engineering or math outside of the school and over summer, too.

“We also created a mentorship program for summer programs and competitions,” Li said. “We have a spreadsheet with I think over 60 different summer programs and personalized tips and guides for students.”

The NSTEM officers created the spreadsheet to compile a list of summer programs for members who are interested in growing their knowledge of science, technology, engineering or math. They provide information on each of the programs such as application information, costs and location so that members can easily find the right program for them and even offer help with the application process. Additionally, the club also supports members interested in competitions. 

“A lot of our meetings centered around sampling contest problems for our members, to see what strengths they have or what contests or competitions that they would like to pursue or just how many things we did,” Han said. “We cover chemistry, we cover aerospace and we cover architecture, all sorts of STEM aspects so the kids can know what parts of STEM they like or what interests them.”

The club meets after school every second and third Wednesday of the month in room 291 in the design lab.