2022 STEM & Innovation Summit
On September 27th, Clarissa Westover and Boer Liu of the Long research group teamed up with Science is Fun (SIF), a directive created by former ASU professor Dr. Mike McKelvy to inspire young students towards STEM. While still at ASU, he founded SIF to address the lack of excitement in STEM in young people. Once he retired, Mike became a high school teacher at Basha high school where he continued his mission with his now high school students. He found that by engaging them to teach their younger peers, lasting impressions were made on and by the students on how cool (and fun) science can be. ASU's SIF social media has now grown to have over 50k likes on TikTok.
In recognition of the importance of community outreach and engagement, part of the NSF's EFRI grant on depolymerizing polyurethane foams was geared towards the Research Engineering and Mentorship program partnered with Dr. Mike McKelvey and Basha High School for their continued support of STEM education. As a result, SIF and ASU have been working over the past weeks to develop a number of polymer-related experiences for the high school students to present to elementary schoolchildren. The team met at the Arizona SciTECH Ecosystem 2022 STEM & Innovation Summit at the Arizona Science Center, where they presented their newly created demos as part of the collaboration.
"I really like the session “everyone can be a scientist”. Four young scientists were showing demo speaking different languages. I saw how people from different culture, ages, and background are bonded together because of science." -- Boer L.
The Summit is a community event where scientists, educators and companies can come together and engage with the community about science. In total, over 900 collaborators across the state came together to create and foster a "STEM Ecosystem" where everyone can discuss science and learn how to make it more accessible to the general population. It is also a fantastic opportunity for those who are already involved in STEM careers to rediscover their passion and love of science, because it is too easy to forget how awesome it can be.
"It was really cool to see how the high schoolers interacted with young scientists-to-be and explained complicated things in simple ways. And, participating in the activities was fun! I was reminded of how awe-inspiring science and engineering can be and how everything can be a science experiment." -- Clarissa W.
Follow ASU's SIF here: