Youth Make Impact on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) on the Peninsula

What began as a simple observation by a Redwood City teen led to the first-ever San Mateo County STEM Festival this month with 3000 attendees. Ryan Traynor, President of the Redwood City Youth Literacy Council, began designing and creating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math summer sessions for youth in the community in his quest to increase the literacy and graduation rates of area youth. Working with the Youth Literacy Council and Youth for Literacy Club he formed 3 years ago, these teens have created numerous free programs offered primarily at the Redwood City Public Library to get youth more interested in learning and school. They believe that making learning fun is the first step in creating a life-long learner. The success of their summer sessions gave Ryan the idea to bring the exciting concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) to the entire community through local organizations. Different than the local science fairs done by schools, they created a festival with 35 outdoor and indoor booths, 10 speakers and 3 contests that offered fun, hands-on demonstrations that made STEM applicable to everyday activities.

Ryan Traynor, a 17-year-old Junior from St. Francis High School relayed their plan: “We wanted a local festival that brought the fun of learning directly into the hands of local families. In addition, we wanted organizations to demonstrate their activities, while showing youth the importance of learning things in school that could be applied to future careers. When my research showed me that 80% of future jobs would require STEM knowledge, I knew we needed something that would encourage youth to become interested in these fields so that we could generate trained workers for future jobs. Everybody wins – the businesses get the workers they need locally, graduating students get jobs, and we continue to advance in these fields, making us competitive against foreign businesses.”

The 9 teens on the Youth Literacy Council spearheaded the event, working with the Redwood City Library Foundation. The Courthouse Square was selected because of its central location, easy access from anywhere in the county, available free parking, and high visibility. In addition, they were able to work with the County History Museum to open the museum for free for the entire day and offer even more activities and contests inside. This exposed many visitors to the museum for the first time.

The Council was fortunate to have the talents of local experts to demonstrate fun aspects of science, technology, engineering, and math including 7 schools, 9 businesses, and 12 nonprofit/government organizations. One of the goals, to offer the event for free, including opening up the museum for free to the public for the entire day, was accomplished through generous grants provided by the Port of Redwood City, Oracle, Elks Lodge #1991, and State Farm with the support from Youth Service America. Youth Service America provided important training and guidance to the Youth Council members. Most importantly however, was the involvement by the community. A community event this large offered by all volunteers, requires many dedicated people to orchestrate and staff the event. The Youth Literacy Council paired the timing of the event with Global Youth Service Day so they could involve as many youth in volunteering as they could, to incorporate leadership and learning components for youth as well. This led to over 200 volunteers during the event and 790 volunteers planning the event, all orchestrated by Ryan and the Youth Literacy Council. Many community leaders attended or spoke at the event including Senator Jerry Hill, Council Members Shelly Masur and Alicia Aguirre, Mayor John Seybert, Vice Mayor Ian Bain, and more. It truly was an event put on by the community, for the community, clearly demonstrating the high community spirit backing an important cause.

Mayor John Seybert added, “Thank you to all the festival partners for offering this free event to help youth see the fun side of STEM and expose them to a potential career in STEM.”

The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Festival event that educated over 3000 people demonstrates how youth are capable of creating amazing change. Working with many community partners, this team of go-getters has managed to pull off yet another unbelievably successful event for the county.