Catalyst 4 Success: Students Engaging Students in STEM
From Rick McMaster
You meet interesting people while standing in line.  In July I attended the San Diego Comic Convention with my daughter.  It is the biggest gathering of pop culture in the world and it goes well beyond just comics to TV, movies, video games, and more.  You need only look though the long list of sessions to find STEM topics like “The Nerd in the Classroom: Sci-Fi as an Education Tool”. If you visited the exhibit floor, you would have found the the American Physical Society handing out their comic books, with the most recent issue using a dilatant material to defeat the villian.

The lines at SDCC form early for the big halls and my daughter and I joined at 7:00am for a panel that started at 10:00.  (We never got in.)  There we met Jake Zemper who was attanding with his sister and dad.  We got to the topic of STEM at some point and Jake offered that he was a member of the recently formed Catalyst 4 Success at Westview High School. (Jake is the Vice President of Magic Shows.) The goal of the organization is described best in their own words “Our goal is to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) for young students in order to inspire them to become the world's future scientists and innovators.” This is very similar to the mission of our own local Central Texas Discover Engineering.

Jake and I exchanged our experiences, demonstrations, activities and emails, promising to stay in contact toward our common goal. After returning to Austin, I opened the link that Jake had sent and was very impressed with the work C4S has accomplished in a very short period of time. Since February of this year, they have reached over 11,000 students across 15 schools in 5 school districts with their magic shows and more through hands-on activities in 18 classrooms.

I spoke with Jason Ge, now a senior and C4S’s Founder and CEO. Jason’s enthusiasm for STEM outreach was obvious from our conversation. Jason formed an advisory board of Dr. John P. Collins, Superintendent of Poway Unified School District, their local district, and Todd Cassen, Principal of Westview High School, and recently added Dr. Marinda Li Wu current President of American Chemical Society as an honory member. Their current goal is to reach 25,000 students by February of next year.

Much of the STEM outreach that you see today is led by volunteers from industry and professional organizations. College and university students have also gotten involved. What makes C4S unique is that a group of high school juniors initiated the program and high school students fully staff it. You need only look at the smiling faces in the photos on their website to see that both the C4S team and the students in their audience are energized by what they are doing and seeing.   What could be better – students exciting students about STEM; the “old” high school seniors acting as role models for the younger students.

This program is replicable across many other high schools. (Two new chapters have already been formed at Del Norte High School Rancho Bernardo High School.) It just takes the initial spark to get things going. I am already in discussion with two Central Texas school districts about C4S to complement our CTDE outreach. I suggest that you explore the Catalyst for Success web site to see what you might be able to do in your local community.

Until the next issue and, as always, your comments and suggestions for future columns are welcome, @drkold.

Rick McMaster is the STEM Advocate at IBM’s University Programs Worldwide.

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