Celebrating Science at the Global Impact Academy

Georgia CSO Christina brought the Global Impact Academy together for an end-of-year STEM expo as part of Science ATL’s Georgia Chief Science Officer program

On a sunny afternoon in April, students, community members, and their families gathered at the Global Impact Academy (GIA) for a day of demonstrations, presentations, and learning. Over one hundred guests filtered in and out throughout the course of the day, listening to presentations about mathematics in Spanish, extracting DNA from strawberries, and watching student-made balsam cars top speeds of 75 ft/s. Craftier visitors took home popsicle stick boomerangs and atomic models made from wax. The event was single-handedly made possible by Christina, a high school senior and Georgia Chief Science Officer.

Science ATL’s Georgia Chief Science Officer (CSO) program is a STEM leadership initiative for middle and high school students run by ScienceATL. CSOs learn leadership, communication, and project management skills, and they are encouraged to lead STEM initiatives in their own communities, referred to as “action plans”. Christina has been part of the CSO program ever since she was 15.

STEM IN ACTION

Last year, Christina’s action plan was focused on educating her community on gardening. She developed and published a video series on Youtube that teaches viewers how to start and sustain their own gardens for under $150. She also founded a Garden Club at GIA that tends to the GIA garden and promotes healthy living with STEM-based methods. To conclude her action plan, she hosted a “Gardening 101” event, where she provided attendees with the tools needed to bring their gardening ideas to life. The legacy of Christina’s action plan continues to live on a year later; the GIA community garden is thriving. Her Garden Club continues to enrich the GIA community to this day by meeting weekly to spread gardening tips and engage in local initiatives such as the Fairburn City Council’s Adopt A Planter project.

As a nod to her great work in the previous year, Christina was one of five CSOs selected to serve on the 2023-2024 Leadership Council. The Leadership Council is composed of CSOs who have executed exceptional action plans in previous years. They lead trainings and workshops where they can use their wealth of experience and knowledge to support their fellow CSOs. This year, Christina led students from 22 different schools in the creation of their own action plans while simultaneously carrying out her own.

This year, Christina drew inspiration from two different places when brainstorming for her action plan. Her first inspiration was from her Global Impact Academy peers, who are involved in a plethora of STEM activities from robotics competitions to video game design. “We have the STEM stuff but we don’t use it. We don’t show it to the community,” She explained. Her second inspiration was the Atlanta Science Festival’s Exploration Expo, which she attends every year with her family. A STEM Expo seemed like the perfect opportunity for Christina to showcase her peers’ work.

BRINGING HANDS ON SCIENCE TO THE COMMUNITY

At Christina’s STEM Expo, students ran the show. Some were teaching visitors STEM concepts in Spanish, from numbers and mathematical operations to colors and their influence on human emotion. Others were leading hands-on experiments, where visitors got to make their own lava lamps, marshmallow towers, and more. National Honor Society (NHS) president Mia was teaching visitors how to make their own cotton ball launchers out of paper cups and balloons. She worked with other NHS students and explained that NHS got involved because Christina had invited them. Christina had made sure that the event aligned with NHS values and requirements and even set up many of the activities that the students were leading: cotton ball launchers, flower coloring with capillary action, and more. “These different activities are all so simple,” Mia remarked. “Fun, easy things to do that aren’t being on your phone!”

Students teaching visitors STEM concepts in Spanish.

Outside, the Technology Student Association (TSA) had set up the entire courtyard with demonstrations. TSA is one of the largest clubs at GIA with over ninety student members. Eli and Jayden, project managers of dragster racing, were giving detailed explanations of their balsam wood racers to visitors. The racers were hand carved by students to reduce the drag caused by air particles and increase the racers’ overall aerodynamics, and they were launched using CO2 canisters that one could find in a household sodastream. The fastest racer topped speeds of 75 ft/s! Another student, Ethan, was guiding visitors through a video game he had designed himself that included hyperspatially connected screen edges, moving walls and osbtacles, and a soundtrack.

Back inside, teacher Ashaunte Marie was leading an atom building demonstration and showing participants how to fold their own nucleus, orbitals, and electrons with wax sticks. Ms. Marie is a former teacher of Christina’s and came to the expo to support her work. She had nothing but good things to say about Christina and her peers: “It makes me so proud to see them take initiative like this! I’m very, very proud of Christina for putting this on and organizing it the way she did. I’m proud of my students for being able to explain the purpose of their exhibits and projects, and I’m proud that they were all able to come together.”

Christina showing visitors how to make their own lava lamps.

Christina was equally thrilled to see her peers show up and support each other at the expo and she described it as one of her favorite parts of the event. Her other favorite part? The strawberry DNA extraction experiment. “When I first went to the Atlanta Science Festival, [the experiment] was one of the things that made me feel like — this is really cool!” She explained. “And we went back every year after that, so I wanted to give that experience to other kids.” This is Christina’s final action plan, as she is a senior and will be graduating this year. In the fall, she’ll be attending the Georgia Institute of Technology where she plans on majoring in chemical engineering.

Christina was thankful for the support she received from Science ATL throughout the process. “I got help from advisors at the beginning of the year. We had some graduate students come and they gave me some good tips to help me get started. And [all of] the support of getting to this point.” She expressed. “People on the advisory council reached out to make sure I was ready for today! It was all really, really helpful.”

Science ATL has been encouraging students like Christina ever since 2018. In the 2023-2024 school year, they supported 57 students by connecting them with STEM educators and industry professionals, teaching them leadership skills, and helping them execute plans to improve their communities through STEM. Action plans this year ranged from the founding of computer coding clubs to hosting STEM field days.

Students are our future. And from the looks of Christina’s exposition, and Science ATL’s 57 Georgia Chief Science Officers, our future is STEM.