After a year of residency on NC’s ever-growing list of clubs, Science Club continues to redefine the way students digest, interpret and learn about science in an engaging manner. Prepped with appealing activities and an easy-going environment, students can learn about biology, chemistry, physics and a plethora of other science disciplines on Tuesdays after school. Science Club receives both support and sponsorship from several of NC’s science teachers, and club meetings occur in and around the classrooms of passionate educators who equally care about STEM. Well-equipped with plans for the future and a drive to spread the love of the sciences throughout the school, Science Club stands as a future hallmark of the extracurricular landscape of NC.
Co-founded in the fall of 2022 by magnet seniors Claire Isbitts and Leona Longhurst, the club expanded its leadership board as it progressed into the new school year. With magnet junior Betty Essayas as vice president, magnet senior Lily Trottier as secretary and magnet senior Malia Everett as treasurer, the all-female executive board collaborates to explore and flesh out innovative ideas for meetings. Each week, meetings follow a similar structure; Longhurst and Isbitts choose a discipline of science to focus on, and teach members about the application of said topic within the chosen lab or activity for the meeting. Through this structure, members can tangibly comprehend potentially complex concepts in a manner free of the restrictions of rubrics or answer keys.
“Something very important to us was bringing more STEM opportunities to the NC community. Especially as a school that has an International studies magnet, we tend to focus more on social policy and international relations, which are all things that are important for society and important skills to learn before you graduate. But there is a very large community of students at NC who would love to participate in the sciences. Before we came to the school, there weren’t many [STEM] opportunities, even in class choice, so we wanted to expand people’s horizons in terms of what they could do in science at NC in our community. Our school doesn’t focus very much on labs and research, so we wanted to provide a space where students could come in and really get hands-on experience with their favorite science subjects,” Longhurst said.
At the club’s recent gathering September 19, members created Elephant Toothpaste, a chemical reaction that provided a hands-on approach to understanding the impact of potassium on hydrogen peroxide. As the classroom swarmed with sounds of awe and excitement with the scientific marvels members created, a sense of camaraderie lingered amidst the steam coming from beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks. As students passed around different scientific jokes and laughed alongside one another, tenderness engulfed the room in a way that posed as oxymoronic to the seriousness of hard science. Another indicator of this attention to detail lies within their stark commitment to safety within every participant in Tuesday’s meeting; every club-goer dawned safety goggles and aprons in order to conduct the experiment.
Alongside the club’s engagement with students in person, the online presence of Science Club further encourages participation from all members of the NC community. As a component of her job as secretary, Trottier runs the club’s Instagram; the page features several interactive stories and colorful posts to advertise meetings. The club’s feed also includes photos taken during the meetings that astutely capture the curiosity and excitement of members as they exercise different methods of learning about science.
As members of NC’s International Studies magnet program, Isbitts and Longhurst understand how limiting curricula may appear for students interested in the field of STEM. Diverse interests and varying viewpoints on different aspects of education deserve a proper space to flourish—the Science Club aims to provide just that. Organizations that center around STEM fields such as Medical Club, Eco Warriors or NC’s chapter of Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) similarly aid in allowing students several different avenues to explore their established interests or hidden desires. Through their hard work and devotion to growing the Science Club beyond NC’s halls, the co-founders hope to showcase the marvels of science to as many students as possible in and around the NC community.
“I think it’s really important to allow many students who enjoy a lot of different things to have access to a lot of different places to enjoy what they like and want to do. I personally really like history and politics and literature and reading and writing, but I also really love biology, and how humans work within their environments and how natural things happen to humans in relation to their surroundings. I just wanted another place to be able to explore that separate part of myself that I still really like, and think should be enhanced,” Isbitts said.
As for looking toward the future, Isbitts and Longhurst plan to expand the club through implementing a Science National Honors Society (SNHS) within the school, similar to the National Art Society at NC. With this extension of Science Club, members desire to spread a love for and participation in the sciences within and around the NC community. Through the caring, captivating and curiosity-inducing atmosphere that the club has built over the last year, the NC Science Club holds a future brighter than a chemiluminescent reaction.
