To teach children advocacy, the Chief Science Officers (CSOs) hosted a letter-writing campaign on November 7 from 4-5:30 p.m. at the Boys and Girls Club, where they helped kids write letters to local representatives.
The Chief Science Officers is a national program that helps students show leadership in STEM.
“The Chief Science Officer’s mission is to put students in leadership roles to bring STEM learning and experiences to the community,” CSO advisor Alison McGovern said.
“It allows us to spread our love of science and STEM to our school and try to get younger kids interested in STEM,” CSO Aimal Ahmad said.
The CSO program also provides students with the resources needed to start a project that brings STEM into their communities. This year, the CSOs from Souderton hosted a letter-writing campaign at the Boys and Girls Club.
According to CSO Cassandra Shurtz, the Boys and Girls Club is a good place to host events because, while parents are at work, their kids stay at the club to learn and play fun games before going home. It is also good afternoon timeslot for both the CSOs and the students.
For this campaign, the kids wrote letters to Pa. State Senator Tracy Pennycuick and Pa. Representative Donna Scheuren. In these letters, the kids wrote about problems in their communities and their ideas for fixing them.
“We decided to do this campaign because in my AP Government class, and over the summer, I realized advocacy is something really important that not a lot of students know about,” CSO Riya Mehta said.
Advocacy is the idea of publicly supporting a cause that you believe in. Teaching children advocacy was only one of the goals the CSOs had in mind for this event.
“I think one of the goals was just to bring awareness to that population of young students and teach them that their voices can be heard and are important,” McGovern said.
The energy and enthusiasm of these young students can be used to create positive change within their communities.
“We wanted to spark that interest and passion in the kids and let them know that, if they are passionate about something, something can be done,” Mehta said.
The students wrote letters advocating for improvements of school playgrounds, school lunches and parks after-school programs and animal welfare.
“I think this taught them that, no matter how young, they have a voice and are allowed to express their opinions and thoughts on things,” Shurtz said.
Even though the CSOs were only with the students for a little over an hour, they believe the students will use the lesson again in the future.
“They all seemed like they had learned about what they could do and were thinking about what kind of impact they wanted,” Ahmad said. “I think it was really good for them to think about things they don’t love about the world and then think of solutions to change it.”
According to Mehta, while advocacy might not be centered around STEM, it still raises passion within the students.
“Last year, our purpose was to raise STEM awareness; this year, it’s to raise advocacy awareness,” Mehta said. “We’re just sparking different passions.”