Navy commands team with North Kitsap School District for STEM Summer Camp
This year’s event, held daily at Kingston and Poulsbo middle schools and serving 120 elementary and middle school students, marked the third year of the partnership and the first time high school interns led projects.
NUWC Division, Keyport’s interns were Emma Knight and Zoë Manning, incoming high school seniors participating in the Navy’s Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program. They helped children learn fundamental physics and engineering concepts through hands-on projects that included building electric racers, hydraulic claws, wind turbines and electromagnets.
According to NUWC Division, Keyport STEM Outreach Director Sam De Lano, the activities were designed to encourage creative problem-solving. “We give them projects that are unlike assembling a Lego kit,” he said. “We don't walk them through each step, but rather give them the opportunity to come up with creative ways to solve problems.”
Manning, who attends Marist Catholic High School in Eugene, Oregon, said she believes the students benefited from having interns closer to their age leading the activities.
"We connected well overall, almost like we were their older siblings versus an adult," she said. She added that it was especially rewarding to watch the children learn how to "fail gracefully" and push through the trial and error that STEM activities often require.
Knight, a student at North Kitsap High School in Poulsbo, Washington, said her goal was to help students feel more comfortable with STEM.
"I feel like it gave them some insight into some STEM-related topics, even if it was just surface level," she said. "It also made them feel more comfortable with STEM. I hope I made a pretty big impact."
Knight and Manning both discovered SEAP through siblings who had participated in the program. They said they applied hoping to gain real-world workplace experience and a better understanding of STEM careers.
De Lano praised the interns’ performance and their ability to bridge the communication gap with the younger age group.
"They did a good job preparing,” said De Lano. “They built the projects themselves to anticipate what kind of questions that might be asked or where additional explanation may be needed."
In addition to making a positive difference in the community, the internship helped give Knight and Manning a better understanding of what a career in STEM could look like.
"It's hard when you're just looking at a job description to really understand what your job would entail and what your day-to-day would look like," said Manning, who plans to study engineering in college. "I think the internship is a good insight into a lot of STEM-related careers, as well as just working for the Navy overall."
Knight, who plans to study cybersecurity, agreed, adding that she appreciated the variety of work.
"It's been really fun, and I like that we got to do a lot of different projects," Knight said. "It was really nice to kind of dip our toes into all the different fields of STEM."
De Lano said he intends to build on this year's success and make student-led instruction a reoccurring feature of STEM Summer Camp going forward.
-KPT-
Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport is headquartered in the state of Washington on the Puget Sound, about 10 miles west of Seattle. To provide ready support to Fleet operational forces at all major Navy homeports in the Pacific, NUWC Division, Keyport maintains detachments in San Diego, California and Honolulu, Hawaii, and remote operating sites in Guam; Japan; Hawthorne, Nevada; and Portsmouth, Virginia. At NUWC Division, Keyport, our diverse and highly skilled team of engineers, scientists, technicians, administrative professionals and industrial craftsmen work tirelessly to develop, maintain and sustain undersea warfare superiority for the United States.
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