PVS STEM Workshop: Empowering Young Minds

On November 8th, PVS high school students mentored 4th graders as they engaged in a wide-range STEM workshop within Pleasant View School. Expanding on a previous workshop that was held at Oak Elementary School, many of the high school volunteers used their experience to work with a much larger group of young learners. 

The workshop functioned similarly to how it did at Oak Elementary, with activities split into the categories of robotics, programming, dynamics, and electronics. However, this time around, there were multiple activities for each category, including a straw launcher, a finch robot, and more. Volunteers had the opportunity to take home the materials for an activity of their choice and try them out to find the best method to teach the kids in an enjoyable way.

The straw launcher station, for example, had the young students learn about angles to launch straws into a box full of candy. Many of the kids tried out a station where they programmed a toy car to draw shapes on the floor. Among these activities and many others, including a circuit board, Legos, and many kinds of robots, the students in both high school and 4th grade gained a newfound interest in many STEM-related fields.

“Having prior experience with this workshop, I had an understanding of how students in their age group thought and what was appealing to them. It allowed me to come up with a more engaging way to demonstrate the robots to the kids,” commented PVS junior Noor Maree, one of the volunteers. 

“The best memory I had was seeing the kids’ faces light up when they were able to program their robot in their desired way. They were all very proud of themselves after seeing their robots move.”