Partner Spotight
Boys & Girls Clubs of Snohomish County Collaborate with Partners to Inspire Youth to Engage in STEM
Over the last 16 months, following the transition to a full-day program schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Snohomish County (BGCSC) has been diligent about making program and operation adjustments in order to provide distance learning, as well as other fun, educational and productive activities for our kids.
This has been especially true of our efforts to engage our corporate and educational partners in virtual STEM and workforce development activities. These efforts have included a wide-range of partners including Boeing, Fortive, First Financial Bank, Sea Research Foundation, Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, among others.
Two examples of virtual partnership engagement, one with a local partner and the other located in Annapolis, Maryland are with Stantec and the U.S. Naval Academy. Both are extremely committed partners who have provided some wonderful, engaging activities for our kids. Stantec, a Seattle and Lynnwood-based engineering firm has an ongoing relationship with our Alderwood Boys & Girls Club, and was happy to switch gears to try some virtual STEM/Workforce Development activities with our kids. This involved both the Lynnwood and Seattle offices having their engineering staff plan and present a number of virtual STEM activities, lessons and career discussions for the kids—one of which was about electrical currents and conductivity, and another focused-on force and gravity with a parachute egg drop.
Another lesson was about structural engineering and how they design bridges or multi-story buildings. The hands-on activity for the kids involved uncooked spaghetti, marshmallows and gum drops! After watching many of their initial structures collapse, our kids learned to use cross-braces and structural supports to fortify foundations and strengthen walls. These structures didn’t last long however as many of the marshmallows and gumdrops were ultimately eaten (with ear-to-ear smiles)!
BGCSC has also worked with some of their long-distance partners such as the U.S. Naval Academy and their Midshipmen Action Group (MAG). They had a number of virtual STEM lessons that have involved physics lessons on lift, force, flight and how these lessons relate to what they are studying at the Naval Academy or the duties that they will be responsible for upon graduation and then deployment. Over these past many months, BGCSC had a number of Clubs involved in these lessons including Alderwood BGC, Lummi Nation BGC, Oak Harbor BGC, Everett BGC and Mukilteo BGC. They also recently had a female Naval Academy graduate, Zoom with 8-10 of our clubs during BGC InspireHer session. Here young ladies learned about how this young professional decided to go the Academy for college, what kinds of classes she took and what her current Naval career looks like. It was a tremendous way to inspire girls and teach them about the many career possibilities for women that aren’t always taught or pointed to girls. This InspireHer session was just one of many BGCSC held for kids this year. Other virtual InspireHer STEM mentors have included a robotics surgeon, compounding pharmacist, and a video game production specialist. All of us at BGCSC continue to pivot, making the necessary program or operational adjustments needed to keep kids engaged in fun, educational and productive activities.