STEM School: How Evanston camp educates beyond the classroom

Laughter rang through the classroom as children listened to their teacher compliment their group science projects. During STEM School Evanston’s STEM Camp Aug. 12-16 at Family Focus, kids of various ages participated in fun and educational activities centered on science, engineering, math and technology. 

In the classroom, taught by Northwestern liaison to STEM School Evanston Arikpo Dada, campers challenged themselves to build the tallest freestanding tower using paper cups, plates, magazines and tape. Earlier in the week, they designed tower-like structures using marshmallows and spaghetti. The goal was to choose the strongest structure, but since all broke down, the kids were able to try again with a new challenge on Thursday, just as engineers receive other opportunities, Dada said.

“What I’ve seen with them is that they just become really excited about STEM,” Dada said. “We say this word STEM, and sometimes it feels like something that’s so unattainable. But for our students and our kids, if we keep putting STEM in front of them, it just starts chipping away at that idea.”

There were two classrooms, and a total of 36 kids in the weeklong camp. The kids were split up into groups based on their grades, which were third, fourth, fifth and sixth.

The kids in Dada’s classroom also had an activity called “diffusion” where they drew or wrote phrases on coffee filters with permanent markers. Most chose positive phrases about themselves like “I am beautiful” and “I am a star.”

Dada said she taught high school math and middle school math and science, so as an educator she brought in content from both subjects as much as possible during the camp. 

To start the week, professors from Northwestern’s Center for Talent Development gave the kids an introduction to electricity. During that program, two groups learned for a few hours about what electricity is, how electrons make lights turn on and how to make things vibrate, Dada said. After this introduction, the kids began working on LED light projects the next day.

Daniel Martin, a math and science teacher at James Wadsworth STEM Elementary School in Chicago, led the project. The students drew the shape they wanted on a square piece of plexiglass and then glued LED strips to the design. The kids could choose between a circle, square, ellipse or star. 

“They’ll be more curious about bigger systems, and like the lighting systems, ComEd has power systems that work on the same principle,” Martin said.

The kids were also taught how to make connections between wires.

Aria Jackson, a 6- year-old in the camp who is going into third grade, said the most enjoyable activity was making an LED light, for which she chose to do a pink circle.

“My favorite part was [the LED light] and going to the park where we play, today we went to the gym,” Aria said. 

Henry Wilkins, a founder of STEM School Evanston, said the camp is a product of community input. Through Northwestern’s Amplifying Black Voices initiative, STEM School Evanston leaders were able to hear from the Fifth Ward community about how they wanted the education of their children improved. Wilkins said that the Black community overwhelmingly expressed they wanted a bigger focus on STEM, which is now the goal of the nonprofit STEM School Evanston. 

The camp was funded by a grant from philanthropists Paul and Mary Finnegan, Wilkins said. In order to reach as many underprivileged children as possible, the nonprofit partnered with community organizations such as Family Focus, where the camp was hosted, Wilkins said.

“This camp really was about providing an out of school opportunity for Black students, and we chose a time where there’s few camp opportunities for parents,” he said.

The camp was free to ensure there were no barriers related to financing, Project Coordinator Renne Marriot Stone said. 

On the camp’s final day, there was a field day and the kids had potato sack and relay races and a showcase where they could display to their parents all of the projects they worked on throughout the week. 

Midweek, the kids were able to go on a field trip to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. 

Maya Reina, a helping lead, said the kids had very well-rounded schedules. One morning, they had a dance warmup activity and played the game “Heads Up, Seven Up.” In the afternoon, the campers were introduced to a coding software called TunePad that uses musical notes so that they could learn about rhythm and create sequences with beats. 

“We introduced pianos and keys,” Reina said. “With the older kids, though, we did have some kids who had coding experience. We had one kid who knew a little bit of Python. So one of the instructors was working with him to code, which was really cool to see.”

She said it was exciting to see the kids “light up” about creating music.

Marriot Stone said STEM is part of everyday life, and it is important to give kids from underrepresented communities the confidence to approach those disciplines.

“It is so important, especially when you’re dealing with a demographic that is underrepresented in the STEM field, for people to support as much as they can — companies, organizations or whatever the case may be — just to give these kids the opportunity. Because, it’s very hard for them to get it otherwise.”