{"id":403084,"date":"2026-08-11T01:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T01:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/403084\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T01:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T01:12:10","slug":"stemsters-of-yvonne-a-ewell-townview-center-prepare-for-another-school-year-of-programing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/403084\/","title":{"rendered":"STEMsters of Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center prepare for another school year of programing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Volunteers Joceline (left) and Lupita Orozco (right) with three students at Harrell Budd Elementary for one of the workshops. Photo courtesy of Laasya Uppalapati.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2025, high schoolers from the School of Science and Engineering (SEM) at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center<\/a> began to consider how they could give back to local students through their love of science, technology, education and mathematics.<\/p>\n

That answer became starting a chapter of STEMsters<\/a>, a nonprofit where high school students bring hands-on STEM workshops to elementary students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 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\u2019re working with,\u201d Sanchez said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After building that connection, King said the group learned how to get their bearings.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we had sessions, we were able to actually connect with the kids and the centers, so then again we learned obviously when you\u2019re 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\u2019s who has strong suits in certain fields, as opposed to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the STEM topics that the Townview chapter has covered through their workshops includes physics.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ve learned.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Students at the Kiest Park Recreational Center working on the Marshmallow Catapult project. Photo courtesy of Laasya Uppalapati.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne 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,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cIt was very exciting to see when we had them build a paper plane when they explained to us, \u2018Oh, is that potential energy?\u2019 and we\u2019re like, \u2018Yes, that\u2019s potential energy.\u2019 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\u2019s one of our best lessons we\u2019ve given.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another impactful workshop King mentioned was the hot air balloon project, where the elementary students learned about air resistance and gravity.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a great mentor to me, and it\u2019s thanks to him that I actually got involved in STEM, and ever since then I\u2019ve done robotics, and then I\u2019ve participated in new STEM activities, and I would say a large reason of why I\u2019m doing this now is thanks to him, because he inspired me to pursue STEM,\u201d she said. \u201cI 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 \u2026 I\u2019m hoping that us in STEMsters can be that person for these new students.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volunteers Joceline (left) and Lupita Orozco (right) with three students at Harrell Budd Elementary for one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,141230,141231,141232,141233,141234,141235,141236],"class_list":["post-403084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-edith-sanchez","tag-harrell-budd-elementary","tag-jasira-king","tag-kiest-park-recreational-center","tag-school-of-science-and-engineering-sem","tag-stemsters","tag-yvonne-a-ewell-townview-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}