Lower Merion STEM camp helping young girls looking to advance skills in high school
ARDMORE, Pa. (CBS) — A science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) camp in Lower Merion Township gave hope this week to young girls looking to advance their skills in high school.
Lola Seyi-David and her classmate were working on a project at Lower Merion High School. Seyi-David said she enjoyed this way of preparing for the ninth grade, despite her team facing some challenges building and coding a rollercoaster and ball drop.
"At some parts, we had some difficulties, like making sure the ball goes smoothly," Seyi-David said. "But, it's going pretty good."
So Seyi-David pushed through, along with more than 40 other middle school girls invited to this week-long STEM camp by the Lower Merion School District. The girls started with brightly-colored plastic straws and computer code to build cranes, robotic flowers and motorized bridges that opened when they clapped.
It looked like this room was packed with talent. However, teacher and camp founder Nyanthen Bantoe said there were still not enough girls and students of color taking advanced science courses in the district.
"Ah, yes, most definitely, which is one of the reasons why we started this, to make sure that students get that access early," Bantoe said. "And when they step into that, they can feel fully confident in themselves and their abilities."
To get more students interested in STEM, he recruited other teachers to help with the camp.
Bantoe also tapped students like Harriton High School 11th grader Haneen Harouf, who built a crane she could move with a wave of her arm. Harouf said she was excited to mentor younger students as they all learned to love stem.
"I really hope that I can inspire these kids to get to computer science," Harouf said. "I don't think that there's enough people in the field, especially for girls in STEM."
This camp is doing more than showing these young ladies how to build things. It also helped Seyi-David to dream big.
"I can be a doctor, or a pediatrician, or maybe like a type of engineer," Seyi-David said.
And at this camp, all their dreams were becoming one step closer to reality.