The STEM club at Hackley was founded in 2021 but since then has grown to be an inclusive and educational experience with goals to help all students dive into their passions and interests. Originally, the STEM club was intended to be a math-focused club, but as junior leaders Rafael Castro, Jimmy Muslomani, Vivek Malik, and Alicia Zhu planned more, they decided it would be better to expand their topics to all things STEM.
“We founded this club to create a space where students interested in STEM can learn and present about topics not traditionally discussed or taught in school,” said Vivek Malik.
Each meeting, the club hosts one leader or member to present on a topic that they find interesting.
“We have presentations on all sorts of topics from Aquabots to Theoretical Math. There is really no limit,” Rafael said.
Additionally, one of the big focuses that the leaders have this year is improving and expanding their website.
“Our website is where we include all of the projects and presentations that our members and leaders have presented on,” Rafael said.
Recently, the website was updated with graph art made on the platform Desmos by both leaders and members to celebrate Halloween with an added aspect of STEM.
“In the future, we hope to use this website as a resource for students and adults outside of Hackley who want to learn about more topics that they cannot learn about in classrooms,” Vivek said.
The STEM club has also been one of the only clubs to engage with all divisions of the school. They present at the annual lower school STEM night with fun beginner activities to help spark interest in STEM in the lower school. Since last year, the group has also been teaching a middle school club on various topics to further educate them on all things STEM that they do not have the opportunity to explore in the classroom setting.
The STEM club leaders designed a yellow logo to convey their purpose to the student body. They then centered their website around this logo to draw the community to their work.
“We hope engaging with all divisions can help expand the interest in STEM early on and encourage all ages to participate in diving deep into topics they are passionate about,” said Rafael.
Another goal that the STEM club hopes to achieve this year is providing more opportunities for science and math olympiads.
“This year we are in the process of building a science and math olympiad team to encourage STEM work in a more competitive and fun nature,” Vivek said.
The STEM club also prioritizes preparing its members for the upcoming AMC. “Recently Alicia gave a presentation on a few AMC problems where she walked us through them in preparation for the test which was helpful to both us as leaders and our members and gave us all more confidence going into the final days of prep for the AMC,” said Rafael.
For future plans of the club, the leaders are focused on getting more member presentations and involvement overall. They also hope to build the website to be much more accessible and appealing.
The final thing that the STEM club is planning for this year and for the future is introducing a series of expert guest speakers to educate themselves and their members about a variety of topics related to STEM.
“We are really excited and eager to introduce our first few guest speakers because these people are true experts in their fields and we can learn a lot from them about their journey in STEM,” said Vivek.
The Hackley STEM club is a representation of students coming together to educate and learn together. The goals and aspirations that its leaders have this year are compelling and have the potential to make the STEM club an environment that brings together people of all ages and helps encourage the learning and growth of all things STEM.
“We encourage everyone to check out our website and come to our meetings on Day 1 in Mr Karpinski’s room from 12:30 p.m.-1 p.m.,” Rafael said.
