Volunteers Joceline (left) and Lupita Orozco (right) with three students at Harrell Budd Elementary for one of the workshops. Photo courtesy of Laasya Uppalapati.
In the summer of 2025, high schoolers from the School of Science and Engineering (SEM) at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center began to consider how they could give back to local students through their love of science, technology, education and mathematics.
That answer became starting a chapter of STEMsters, a nonprofit where high school students bring hands-on STEM workshops to elementary students.
Edith Sanchez, vice president of the Townview chapter, said that she and their current treasurer discovered the STEMster program through Instagram. They learned that the nonprofit creates materials and assistance for teens to volunteer with local elementary students and were inspired to do the same.
They started their chapter in August 2025, recruiting fellow students to serve in leadership positions to get the program running. From there, they use the resources available through the nonprofit to teach STEM topics to the community.
“In general, we follow the curriculum presented by the STEMsters management, and the presentations each one lists about how many materials we would need per student, and based on those numbers, we contact the center or the school that we’re working with,” Sanchez said.
Jasira King, president of the Townview chapter, said that in her role she coordinates with local schools and community centers to bring those materials in and teach elementary-aged students about STEM.
“When we initially started our chapter at SEM, we first needed to begin doing our groundwork, which was networking and it was sort of a struggle because we were high schoolers, so being able to communicate with community centers and elementaries to establish that we were actually professional and we were being backed by a nonprofit that was kind of the first period that we needed to adjust,” she said.
After building that connection, King said the group learned how to get their bearings.
“Once we had sessions, we were able to actually connect with the kids and the centers, so then again we learned obviously when you’re dealing with elementary school kids, you have to learn different behaviors and mannerisms and how to deal with that, and then also building the team connection, so we have to trust each other and we know who’s who has strong suits in certain fields, as opposed to others.”
One of the STEM topics that the Townview chapter has covered through their workshops includes physics.
Sanchez said that it was interesting to see how each session is able to build off of each other, with students remembering past topics they’ve learned.
Students at the Kiest Park Recreational Center working on the Marshmallow Catapult project. Photo courtesy of Laasya Uppalapati.
“One of the first topics we gave was the catapult challenge, where we have students build a catapult and they would launch a marshmallow, and so with that lesson we taught them about potential and kinetic energy,” Sanchez said. “It was very exciting to see when we had them build a paper plane when they explained to us, ‘Oh, is that potential energy?’ and we’re like, ‘Yes, that’s potential energy.’ So, given that the catapult challenge kind of started this entire cycle of learning potential and kinetic energy, I feel like for me, at least, that’s one of our best lessons we’ve given.”
Another impactful workshop King mentioned was the hot air balloon project, where the elementary students learned about air resistance and gravity.
The high schoolers have held workshops at locations such as Harrell Budd Elementary and Kiest Park Recreational Center. They are still looking for more locations to connect with to provide STEM education to even more students.
For Sanchez, it was the advice from a former school librarian that led her to find a passion for STEM. Now, she wants to do the same through STEMsters.
“He was a great mentor to me, and it’s thanks to him that I actually got involved in STEM, and ever since then I’ve done robotics, and then I’ve participated in new STEM activities, and I would say a large reason of why I’m doing this now is thanks to him, because he inspired me to pursue STEM,” she said. “I know I want to be a STEM major, and I want to hopefully let that fire in students who could have otherwise not known about STEM, and unfortunately, given the community that we do live in, and I am from Oak Cliff. I see a lot of students going down the wrong path, and I am very grateful that, thankfully, I had a mentor … I’m hoping that us in STEMsters can be that person for these new students.”
