These Hockaday, Greenhill students lead a student STEM publication

The Hockaday School students Aravli Paliwal, Ariel Yuan, Katherine Mao, and their Greenhill School friend Ronak Ramni, the founders of Youth STEMline, sit in a circle of large, brown chairs, with computers in their laps and Starbucks drinks in their hands, eager to speak. Last summer, after their freshman year of high school, Aravli pitched her idea for an online, youth-led Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) publication to her friends.

“We went to this Panda Express, and at the time, it felt very Social Network-esque. We were like, ‘There are all these things that we want to do!’ and we got the website up the next week,” Aravli says. “We realized there are a lot of structured methods of being interested in science, but there’s nothing you can really do on your own time. I wanted members to actually produce something. I was going through different methods, and I think writing is one that a lot of people are interested in, or rather, a lot of people are pretty good at, and they don’t realize it.”

Youth STEMline began as an online publication dedicated to publishing STEM-related articles written by students, and has expanded into a community service role this year. Their mission statement describes their initiative as serving “youth in the community through the publication of detailed, well-researched articles that increase access to STEM information.” They use a “youth-serving-youth model” to create a platform of discussion, engagement, and service. They are also dedicated to combating misinformation.

“Our goal is for everyone to stay informed while remaining cognizant of what we can be doing to contribute to a brighter, healthier future,” Ariel says. “I know we’re a youth-led organization, but we do try to follow a pretty strict policy when it comes to citing sources. We require all of our writers to have a reference section, and we go through that pretty rigorously. We also have an editing process where there are at least two pairs of eyes looking at each article before it’s published.”

Some topics are so niche that it can be hard for someone to know what’s false, which is why section editors are assigned to STEM topics they are more well-versed in.

“There is a form of trust that you kind of have to have with your writers,” Aravli says.

Over the past year, their publication has expanded to include 36 more of these writers, or STEM Scribes. While most are from The Hockaday School, there are also students from Greenhill, Allen High School, Plano ISD’s Jasper High School, the Harmony School of Innovation, and even the Sevenoaks School in England. STEM Scribes show their passion for the subject in very different ways. There are articles delving into mathematical theorems, showing the chemistry in baking, examining the science behind online trends, and exposing the detrimental effects of EV creation, all of which reflect each student’s perspective. The group publishes about two or three articles a month. They expect to be releasing more in the next school year, but there are no publication deadlines for STEM Scribes.

“Writers are happy to write. We don’t find a problem with them not having things to publish. When you set a deadline, people kind of get burnt out. They’re like, ‘Do I really want to be in this? Is it really worth it?’ You’d actually be surprised how much people would be able to do on their own,” Aravli says.

Aravli’s favorite is an article she published this January that examined Peter Thiel’s rhetoric and compared it to her school reading, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. Thiel, the cofounder of both PayPal and Palantir, expressed views on transhumanism, government control, and the Antichrist.

“I was seeing similarities between him and Victor Frankenstein in terms of … really wanting to control everything around them.”

“I think our writers write a lot more interesting articles, because most of our time is spent editing. My favorite one is from Aashritha [Shankar]. She writes a bunch of really complicated math articles that no one really understands, but they’re really cool to read,” Katherine says.

According to Ronak’s Youth STEMline Wrapped (modeled after Spotify’s end-of-year recap), Shankar was the busiest writer during the last year with four articles published, including a three-part series on the history of space-time.

One moment that made the founders feel like they had “made it” was when their publication began to appear on the Google search results page. “When you search up Youth STEMline, we show up,” says Ronak, who is in charge of their website and Instagram. “Even ChatGPT and Gemini know about us.”

In just one month this summer, they already had 3,000 views.

“I think we’re growing exponentially,” Aravli adds.

However, looking at the data took their focus away from their mission.

“We all just weren’t satisfied with what the articles were producing in terms of engagement,” Aravli says. “We wanted to see the kids; we want to see them laugh, have them actually find something interesting. And you can do that with the workshops.”

Enter TomorrowMakers, a subsection of Youth STEMline dedicated to direct community outreach, bringing STEM to children through open workshops in Dallas.

“Our workshops started with the idea of, ‘I wish we could have kids directly read something that they wouldn’t find otherwise,’” Ariel says. “And it’s worked out a lot better than we ever anticipated. Because they’re already interested in the topics, then they want to go and read the article as well.”

By early July, the group had already hosted two workshops in partnership with the Dallas Police Association.

“It worked out really well for us because [the DPA] turned out to be the kind of people who really cared about bringing the accessibility of STEM to these kids,” Ariel says. “I really love working with the kids. And I really love how the kids are coming back each week to learn more.”

Their workshops are meant to be engaging and teach the kids to really interact with the materials, through experiments like “cloud-in-a-jar,” led by Katherine, or through topics such as weather and space.

“Most kids are used to adults teaching them. And I know they don’t view us as adults really, and I think that because we’re a bit closer to their age, it feels more personal. There’s more connection there,” Aravli says.

TomorrowMakers is only just picking up steam.

“Now that we have these systems in place, we’re bringing this into the school year as well. We have a lot of events going through August, September, and November right now,” Aravli says.

They have connected with various libraries to host open events where any child is welcome to come and learn.

“We have these spaces, and if people want to come, it’s not a registration type of system,” Ronak says. “But it’s kind of a free-for-all.”