By Matthew Mallio, Contributing Writer
Marlborough – Achieving the Girl Scout Gold Award is no small thing. Girl Scouts aiming for their Gold Award need to find an issue that effects their community, investigate it, and take steps to address that issue whether it’s solving a community’s problem or identifying and addressing a community’s need.
“I wasn’t necessarily sure what I could do,” said 15-year-old Marlborough resident Eliana Greenstein. So, she thought about what she enjoyed and found the answer. Her project is finding, and serving, a need in her community.
“I’m making a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program for the 5- to 7-year-olds at the Boys and Girls Club,” Greenstein said.
Greenstein said for the past two years, she was a Counselor in Training (CIT) for the Discovery Club, which is a Boys and Girls Club program for kids aged 5-7.
“I just fell in love with working with kids that age,” Greenstein said.
The Director of the Discovery Club, she noted, had also talked about wanting more. She said she would really like to see more science. Greenstein herself has been part of the STEM program at Marlborough Public Schools since the sixth grade.
“I’ve been exposed to that kind of thinking,” Greenstein said.
Greenstein said she’s always been interested in math, “but it wasn’t until participating in the STEM program that I discovered an interest in science, especially engineering and physics.
“I really liked the engineering aspect that was introduced. And it was building things, designing that was just a lot of fun for me.”
As the years progressed, the STEM projects got more and more interesting. In the seventh grade, for example, she participated in a “Dragster Project” where students had to design their own cars.
Now, at 15, Greenstein is working on a Mars colony project. Working in a group of four, Greenstein and her teammates need to design a rocket, a transport, a colony, and a biosphere. The STEM program goes from sixth to 10th grades, and has made Greenstein think of college majors involving engineering.
“The STEM program at the high school is just extraordinary,” Greenstein said, adding that she wanted the kids at the Discovery Club to have the same kind of experience.
“I’ve come up with seven different activities that we can do with the kids,” Greenstein said. These are activities where kids can have fun and learn “without them even knowing it.”
These activities include lessons in aerodynamics, coding, Lego building, flotation, magnetism, and stages of matter.
The final activity will be a scavenger hunt based on clues and incorporating STEM concepts where kids work as a group.
Greenstein said she got a lot of help from her former third-grade teacher Tina Petty, with whom she’s stayed in touch.
“She knows this age group very well,” Greenstein said. So, she and her former teacher sat down, brainstormed, and came up with a list of activities. Greenstein then went through the list and picked the ones that would be most feasible.
“Any of these ideas could be done next year or the year after,” Greenstein said, “since this is going to become an annual program at the discovery club.”
The program will run from Aug. 7-11, which is STEM week at the Discovery Club.
When asked what she hopes the kids will get out of the activities, Greenstein said, “I want them to enjoy themselves and be able to know that learning can be fun and there’s different ways to learn that isn’t just worksheets. I just want them to be able to say they learned something this week but they had fun while doing it.”
“I’m excited about the whole project,” said Sherri Greenstein, Eliana’s mother. She said her daughter put a lot of time and effort into the project and that she loves working with kids.
“It’s a natural fit for her,” she said.