This past week, my step daughter and I started attending her district’s Mother Daughter STEM Club! It’s for girls in upper elementary and the student and the parent participate as one unit. I was so happy to see that two of these stations for the inaugural meeting were focused on VEX GO.
I wanted to share some of the impact I saw this meeting and VEX GO have on her (and it’s only the first of many!!). For context, she is on the spectrum and struggles with social cues and general spatial awareness. This meeting was perfect for her to get to talk with other kids her age who are interested in STEM and robotics. It also helped her practice some spatial reasoning with some of the different activities!
The Tallest Tower Challenge was perfect for us to work on together. As a pair, we alternated picking pieces from the VEX GO Kit, then had to build the tallest tower possible with the same pieces. She was able to verbalize her choices as she was building and her plan for constructing the tower, and discussed with other girls at the table what pieces they were using and how they planned on using them.
Her enthusiasm for the activities and the club was really special for me to see and experience. I cannot wait until the next meeting and to see her grow and learn throughout the school year.
Have you tried something like this at your school? What type of engagement do you think would be best to help encourage underrepresented students (minority, female, etc) to pursue more STEM?
