Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues, it's 8.39, and joining me at this time is Stephanie Hessler from the Boys and Girls Club of Geneva. Stephanie, good morning. How are you this morning?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Good morning. I'm doing great. Glad to be here and talk a little bit about summer with you.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Our guest. Yeah, and summer is usually a pretty busy time in the Boys and Girls Club. You wouldn't necessarily think during the summer vacation when the kids are out of school that there would be as many activities as there are, but there's a lot going on. That's for sure.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: We're getting ready on all kinds of fronts. We're most excited about our summer camp, which kicks off July 7th through August 15th. We've got six weeks of a variety of programming and field trips coming up for both our younger kiddos at our Goodman site and our older kids at Carter Road, so we're excited.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely. Would you like to introduce our guest that's joining us?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: I would. Should I talk about these things first?
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely. Let me hit these things. I'll just mention also, and the kids are busy, but the adults are busy too. We've got our golf tournament coming up on Tuesday, July 15th, I want to be sure to promote because proceeds from that help support things like camp. We're still welcoming teams, whole sponsors, and T-signs. We're going to be out at Silver Creek this year again, and Susan Tullison, our amazing business manager and events planner, is the key person managing that event. If you call 759-6060, we'd be happy to talk more about that. And then our summer campaign has just hit mailboxes in the last day or so, again to support our great programming for summer. If you didn't happen to get a flyer about the campaign, I'd be happy to talk with you again at that same 759-6060.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Right, and the headline right across, send a kid to camp.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: That's right. That's what we want to do. We've got a lot of exciting things coming up. The field trips, like I mentioned, to places within 60 to 90 minutes of our site, including – well, I won't give them away just yet. But we've got some yoga, taekwondo, the field trips, literacy is always important to us, and STEM projects. And that's – I want to turn this over to Kerrigan Hurst, our guest, who is our STEM specialist at the Boys and Girls Club, and have her talk a little bit about STEM and what she's been doing all year. There's a lot of excitement down that hall. I watch things – I don't know, all kinds of concoctions and exciting plans and things. But I'll let you explain what happens down that hallway.
Paul Szmal: Hey Kerrigan, good morning. How are you this morning?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: I'm doing good. How are you doing?
Paul Szmal: Good, good. And for people that aren't familiar with what STEM stands for, let's establish that right off the get-go.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Sure. So STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. It's mostly a conglomerate of all of those things that work hand-in-hand with one another that foster an attitude of curiosity within kids.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and that's the idea, is to get them interested in these concepts because these are skills that they could apply to jobs or a secondary education once they decide to go to college or something of that nature, or in both cases.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Sure. It really doesn't matter where you find yourself in life. All of these things that you learn through science, technology, engineering, math kind of set you up for success no matter what. They make you resilient. They help you problem solve. They help you work as a team. So these are all things that at the Boys and Girls Club, we're trying to incorporate through STEM learning activities.
Paul Szmal: So Stephanie has built up and said that there's a lot of fun and curious things going on. So why don't we talk about some of the projects that you've worked on with the kids in the STEM program?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Sure. So last month, my favorite one we did was I built a volcano and then it was the job of all of the kids to use pre-decided materials. We're talking note cards, pipe cleaners, straws, string, to build a shelter for a cotton ball. So they had to think through if a volcano were to erupt, how can I keep this cotton ball safe? And how can I use a limited amount of supplies and the ideas of not only me, but my teammates to do that? And then at the end, they got to watch the volcano explode and see whether or not they succeeded.
Paul Szmal: How'd they do?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: They did great. I did less great. And the volcano explosion was not as cool as I was hoping it was going to be. So they all ended up walking away with candy because I felt bad, but they were so excited about it. They were so curious and excited to use all of these different ideas and work together. I had a group that even put little slips of paper that said like, food, water, safety blanket inside of their structure because they were thinking about what would happen next if they were stuck in this shelter.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was really impressed by that. I've noticed that through these learning opportunities, these kids who were not interested at the beginning of the year are now thinking through the applications of STEM, and they're not stuck on, this is hard. They're stuck on, this is fun. What's next? Not only that, they're having fun, but they're developing those critical thinking skills and those can be applied across a wide variety of things.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Right. An excited brain can do anything.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Absolutely. What are some of the other projects that you've worked on?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Sure. So I also had a STEM club this past, I want to say it was in the winter, where members were able to get a robot of their very own. It was a handhold radio wave controlled robot, and they learned how to take it apart. They learned how to modify it to do different tasks. They decorated it, so they were able to hit art skills, creativity skills. They were construction workers. They built things and tore them down. And at the end, they were able to take those robots home. So I was really excited to see them learn everything they could about something, and then be able to take it home to their families and show younger siblings, older siblings, and spread that love of science.
Paul Szmal: And robotics is becoming a more and more prevalent thing in factories and manufacturing, so to learn that at a young age, wow, that's a really good head start on things.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Right. And learn that it's not scary. It's accessible. It's here. And if you're excited about it, it can be easy.
Paul Szmal: Any other projects that come to mind?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: We do just about once a month a STEM challenge. So that was the volcano I was talking about, where the kids have to work as a team and try to overcome a challenge. So we've done all kinds of those. They've had to hold up a ball, and whoever could do it the highest off the ground was our winner. But as far as their daily dose of STEM, they can also do design your own experiment, where they're given unlimited resources, well, unlimited as far as what I have.
Paul Szmal: Right. And they're able to answer a question or build something new and have that access to their own curiosity without anyone standing in the way. I think this is a great level of education regardless, as you said, of age, because, I mean, this could apply for adults as well as children. But the fact that you're doing something fun, you're learning these concepts, and you're learning these skills, sometimes without even realizing, and you're doing it with practical application. And I think sometimes the practical application, learning to do something like that, is a lot easier than trying to read a textbook or read a manual.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Right. And a lot of the times as a kid, you're told, don't be messy, don't do too much. And in this space, they're allowed to make a mess, and they're allowed to learn how to clean up a mess, which is a whole other can of worms. But I love that they can explore and they can access any thought or curiosity within their brain without judgment. And it allows them to kind of see all of the possibility that STEM opens the door to.
Paul Szmal: And Stephanie, stuff like this STEM program would not be possible without the help of fantastic things like corporate sponsors for the golf tournament, donations, things of that nature.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Yes. That's what helps pay for this whole thing.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. And I was just going to say, like, our kids are so lucky at the Boys and Girls Club. We're so lucky to have great staff, like staff members like Kerrigan, and yes, to be able to give kids these opportunities. And yes, it all takes support, and we appreciate everyone's help with that.
I have to ask, Kerrigan, do you have a wish list coming up of things or maybe a sneak preview of some ideas that you have cooking in your head of what you want to do?
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Absolutely. When it comes to science, there is endless possibilities. So we have a 3D printer at the club, but we don't necessarily always have all the supplies we need to keep that running. We have a garden club, but that also requires a lot of upkeep. So there are all of these different things that, as a community, we can kind of uplift and give access to within these kids. And the cool thing about STEM is that it can be done with any materials in any place. So we make it work with whatever we have, but the more the merrier.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, there you go. I would think maybe trying to design a, going off, I think it's called the Flugeltag that Red Bull does, where they launch off a pier, and whoever flies the farthest wins.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Great idea. Once I find a pier that's good to go.
Paul Szmal: Yes. We'll have to add the safety protocol to that. Probably the simplest thing would be to just set up a kiddie pool and, okay, if you can get across the kiddie pool and then just measure out the distance.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: That's a great idea. They would love that.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Homemade aircraft. Yeah. So, well, Kerrigan, Stephanie, thank you very much for being here this morning. Much appreciated. If you wind up doing that idea, I want pictures.
Stephanie Hessler, Carrigan Hurst: Okay. For sure. I'll have you come down.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. It is 849 on FLX Morning. Thank you, Paul.
