Minuteman Student Sophua Li of Acton Starts Girls in STEM Club

Shown in photo is Minuteman High School student Sophia Li of Acton, who established a Girls in STEM Club at the Clarke Middle School in Lexington. Ms. Li is outside Clarke Middle School. Photo by Sage Romano.

By Judy Bass

LEXINGTON - Minuteman High School has been in the forefront of education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) for quite a while. One indication of that is the indisputable long-term success of the school’s Girls in STEM Club.

In 2015, this award-winning group – whose members include some of Minuteman’s outstanding female students who are majoring in the four STEM fields, are being mentored by successful women who are already established in STEM careers, and who want to share their knowledge and expertise with local middle-school girls - launched a week-long Girls in STEM Camp during February vacation and had another one in August.

The response was truly phenomenal. Seventh- and eighth-grade girls hastened to apply for the experience of being with other students in the same age group who also sought to learn about STEM, find out about STEM education at Minuteman that counts as college credit, and work on STEM projects in a welcoming, informal, female-oriented atmosphere.

Buoyed by the popularity of this venture and seeking to forge a new pathway to involve young students in STEM, Minuteman student Sophia Li of Acton, an Engineering major who is president of the Girls in STEM Club, had an idea.

It’s not surprising that this young woman is on the fast track to an exceptionally promising future after she graduates from Minuteman in June. “I plan on entering a four-year college for electrical engineering with an interest in computer science or robotics,” she said. So far, she has been admitted to UMass Lowell (Honors college), UMass Amherst (Honors college), Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Wentworth Institute of Technology. Ms. Li has also applied to Brown University, Carnegie Mellon and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“I proposed starting a club at a local middle school that would provide easier access to STEM and diversity in what we teach,” Ms. Li, a senior, said. “Over the summer, I contacted schools and touched base with teachers to see who was interested in sponsoring a STEM club while looking up lesson plans and creating some of my own. In October, the plan was set in motion and the first meeting soon followed.”

There was another impetus for this project as well. “I started it for my Girl Scout Gold Award,” Ms. Li explained. “The Gold Award is the highest achievement a Girl Scout can attain, requiring a sustainable leadership project of 80+ hours of work. Our Girls in STEM Club had been interested in branching out from our twice-yearly, week-long Girls in STEM Camps and knew that I wanted to help attain that goal. I presented the idea to the Girl Scouts Advisory for Gold Award ideas and got the plan approved.”

Today, thanks to Ms. Li’s efforts, a lively Girls in STEM Club is in full swing at Clarke Middle School in Lexington. It’s very much in keeping with the valuable outreach that Minuteman already does with middle schools. In fact, Minuteman’s web site, www.minuteman.org, states that “the Minuteman Regional Vocational School District has been partnered with in-district middle schools since 1991, beginning with the Luther Burbank Middle School in Lancaster.”

The ambitious, well-planned outreach that Ms. Li is doing at the Clarke Middle School enhances the connection between Minuteman and its district middle schools. Clarke’s Girls in STEM Club, which meets monthly after school with approximately 12 students, capitalizes upon Ms. Li’s long-standing interest in and aptitude for STEM (“When I was young, I was fascinated by how things work and investigating new ways to solve practical problems.”) and also provides the Clarke students with hands-on, project-based learning opportunities “ranging from electrical circuits to anatomy, from computer science to environmental science,” said Ms. Li.

“Creative projects like this remind us that providing the best education to students in the Commonwealth is our collective responsibility. I’m proud of our partnership with Minuteman Tech and our Clarke Middle School educators and Girls in STEM,” said Lexington Superintendent of Schools Julie Hackett.

Ms. Li has shouldered a lot of the behind-the-scenes prep work herself, including developing curriculum, obtaining class materials, penning a blurb for parents to explain what this new option is all about, and writing and administering pre- and post-lesson quizzes to assess the students’ level of comprehension and retention.

Others pitch in, too. Two teachers from Clarke, Tiffany Zides (Computer Science) and Maia Kingery-Gallagher (Mathematics) are advisors to the Girls in STEM Club.

Several Minuteman students have taken an active role also, said Ms. Li. “My co-president of Girls in STEM, Lillie Powell, of Wayland, helps create the agenda and plans the activities as well as occasionally helps run the meetings. Each meeting focuses on a unique field in STEM, so I try to involve another high school student with experience in that field. For a meeting about anatomy, I’ll take a Health Assisting student [from Minuteman]; for a meeting on DNA and forensics, I’ll take a Biotechnology student; and, for a meeting about the ecosystem, I’ll take an Environmental student.”

All this effort is paying off. Not only have the Clarke students who participate in the Girls in STEM Club benefited significantly, but Ms. Li has grown from the experience - as a leader and role model for younger students, as an ambassador for Minuteman, and as a mature, focused individual..

“I can’t think of a better ambassador for Minuteman than Sophia,” said Michelle Roche, Director of Career and Technical Education at Minuteman. Ms. Roche is one of the founders and current advisors of Minuteman’s Girls in STEM Club. “Sophia is a great example of the wonderful, smart, motivated students we have here at Minuteman. In addition, it’s great to have one of our Girls in STEM ambassadors working with students at one of our district middle schools. She’s certainly someone a seventh- or eighth-grader can look up to and want to follow in her footsteps right into one of Minuteman’s great STEM programs.”

Nina Griffin, a science teacher at Minuteman who is one of the school’s Girls in STEM Club advisors, echoed that praise, noting that Ms. Li “truly enjoys working hands-on with the seventh- and eighth-grade girls that she mentors. This was an initiative started by her, purely motivated by her love of STEM and volunteer work.”

Ms. Kingery-Gallagher, the math teacher from Clarke Middle School, summed up Ms. Li’s remarkable ability and character. “This space she has created celebrates young women and is filled with joy and exploration. Sophia is dedicated to making sure that the girls are not only having fun, building relationships, and getting inspired, but they are also learning how and why things work. Whether she is answering random questions about STEM topics or introducing a hands-on activity, her passion and joy for learning is infectious. Keep an eye on this young leader. She is sure to do incredible things for our world in the future.”

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Minuteman is six months away from moving into a new $145M facility that has been designed to support a robust college and career academy model. The academy model was adopted by staff and administration to create smaller “schools within a school” thereby promoting more personalized learning founded upon close relationships between students and teachers. The Minuteman college and career academy model integrates rigorous academics with relevant technical programming in occupational areas providing individual economic opportunity. The new facility will accommodate project-based learning across disciplines, requiring students to learn how to work on a diverse team, solve problems and think critically. These are essential 21st-century skills that students practice and apply in a variety of school-based and work-based environments.

As an accredited member of the New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC), Minuteman inspires all students to attain their full potential, accelerate their learning, and become purposeful citizens in the global community.