The realm of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics has expanded in importance over the last few years. Hence, talking about these different ideas, to consolidate and increase knowledge and awareness is a key skill which we have been focusing on.

Leading STEM club has been an absolute pleasure, mostly because of the engagement I see in the club. The club has also grown in size, as we have welcomed 4 new members very recently. I hope that in the following two seasons, more students join our activity, as we do allow students to sign up biannually.

Our sessions so far have consisted of Anvita, Rhea or me (the 3 chairs of the club) organising a presentation on a particular topic (rotating between the different STEM areas) which acts as a starting point for our discussions. Over the past 4 months, we have covered topics like artificial intelligence, Moore’s law, Eugenics, Colonisation of space, code breaking, ethical hacking and a host of other topics. Here is the link to all the presentations. The sessions have grown to become more interesting as people are now more comfortable expressing their views of these slightly controversial issues. This helps develop better debates. It is also interesting to predict the future  – for example how will the advancement in field of colonising space, affect us in the future etc; how does ethical hacking impact the relationship between the people of the nation and the government; can artificial intelligence reach the singularity point, and if so what will the consequences be?

In STEM club, we also recognised the need to include the members in discussions beyond just the 40 minutes we get every week. So we sent out a suvery to collect their feedback, based of which, we adapted our presentations, making them more technical than before. We also created a facebook page, for the members to put up interesting articles in the field, to get them thinking about ideas that interest them.

This is all in alignment with what we plan to do in the upcoming 2 seasons to come. The awareness that students have gained from these debates, discussions and presentations should give them the skills to now write articles on ideas that interest them. We are setting up a wordpress blog, to create a collective forum to develop these thoughts and students may choose to express views in many forms – videos, write ups etc. This will hopefully mix individual and group work nicely up for the students, and enable them to hone different skills. We hope to have atleast 1 post by all students by the end of the year ( hopefully 2). This will however, also require the chairs to make changes to the year-long plan which we had originally drafted. We are currently working on creating more presentations with tips to help essay writing, and also on potential ideas to write up. Correcting and editing these write ups in an organised and efficient manner is another aspect we are working on. Moving away from a presentation style introduction to the sessions to something more personalised and individualistic is the new goal we are working towards, as we approach the next two seasons.

Overall, STEM club has turned out to my favourite activity! Its so encouraging to be surrounded by so many students who share the same passions as me!!

Here is the link to our plan of the 1st two seasons that have just passed.

Here is the link to the STEM club blog, which will form the basis of all the activities we conduct in the following 2 seasons of the year.

Here are some pictures of one of the recent meetings:

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• undertaken new challenges
• planned and initiated activities
• shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
• engaged with issues of global importance
• considered the ethical implications of their actions
• developed new skills