
High school students typically go to school to take classes, but in South Burlington, a group of students is teaching them. Juniors Clark Deng and Derek Gagnon and sophomores Alex Chaulot and Nathan Kakalec are providing free workshops in science, technology, engineering, math and business to K-12 students through their new organization, Exploration: STEMB. The founders believe that if kids want to be future innovators, they need to have technological skills and an understanding of how businesses work. The organization came to life after Clark, Derek and Alex competed in and won the Real World Design Challenge in November. The national competition, in which teams of high school students tackle engineering challenges, inspired them to design interactive lessons that would help younger kids by supplementing their traditional classes. In March, their first all-day workshop for kids in grades K-8 drew 45 participants from South Burlington and neighboring communities who took one-hour classes on computer programming, 3D printing, structural engineering and computer security. The founders are planning another free workshop in mid-April and eventually hope to give a $25 Raspberry Pi computer to every kid who passes through the program.
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