On Oct. 24, senior co-presidents Megan Walker and Arya Gupta of WJ’s Kids Are Scientists Too (KAST) club had the opportunity to get featured on local news station FOX5. KAST’s mission statement is to reach out to elementary school students and get them interested in STEM at a young age through simple experiments. Towards the end of filming the five minute segment, Walker and Gupta were surprised with a check, funded by Easterns Automotive Group.
“I founded it in 2020, and basically, we go to local elementary schools and we conduct fun simple science experiments with them,” Walker said.
A few weeks prior to getting the interview, FOX5 posted they were interested in people who are contributing to the community. Walker immediately reached out to them.
“I was like, I just wanted to let you know that this is what I’m doing for local elementary schools in this area. I emailed back with her a couple times [and] I called this woman that works there. She invited me and my co-president onto the show to talk about our club, and what we’re doing,” Walker said.
After arriving to the FOX5 studio on the day of the interview segment, Walker and Gupta were mic’d up and met the two anchors that were going to be asking them questions. Another part of their interview was conducting a science experiment making a homemade lava lamp.
“We were able to work with them; we showed them the experiment [and] they asked us questions about our club,” Walker said.
Following the experiment, one of the news anchors brought out a check of $2,200. Even though other members of the club were not featured on FOX5, they were thrilled to find out. Getting the donation will be very beneficial for purchasing materials.
“Megan sent me a text that KAST was getting funding because of the news segment. I was stoked because a handful of the officers, including Megan and myself, often have to purchase the materials…[I was] also surprised because we had no idea FOX was going to do that,” senior treasurer Jack Wist said.
The club is hoping to expand to other elementary schools. KAST has also been in communication with Garrett Park and Viers Mill Elementary school. They also hope to help other high schools around to help jump-start their own club as well.
“We definitely want to expand to more elementary schools, so that will help us buy materials for experiments and also transport students to those elementary schools. We also want to be able to use it to help other high schoolers be able to start their own branch too, so it can act as money to start them off. If they need money for materials and stuff so they can start impacting elementary schools that were near them as well,” Walker said.
KAST club meets once a month during lunch, posted on their instagram: @kastwj and once a month after school on Thursday. Members are overjoyed with the opportunity they’ve had to outreach to younger students about STEM.
“This club has a really great opportunity to STEM interest in science for the elementary school students involved, and help young students find out what subjects they truly enjoy in school. My favorite part of this club is how excited the elementary schoolers are to participate in the experiments,” junior club member Felix Ozpaker said.
