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Verrado junior melds entertainment, STEM

BY ALEX GALLAGHER West Valley View Staff Writer

Verrado High School junior Ben Doerksen has used his two interests to bridge the gap between entertainment and STEM — science, technology, engineering and math.

Doerksen infused science and filmography into his work as a chief science officer. He helps create monthly YouTube videos for the Chief Science Officers International’s channel. In a recent segment, he showed how to make ice cream at home and explained the science behind it.

“This takes the film creation thing that I like and combines it with the CSO program and STEM,” he said. “It’s something that I really enjoy doing.”

CSOs are students in grades 6 to 12, who serve as STEM ambassadors and a liaison for STEM opportunities in their communities. Elected by their peers, CSOs are the voice for their fellow students, bringing STEM opportunities to their communities and change to their worlds.

Doerksen was one of the first students to join the chief science officer program when the Arizona SciTech Institute launched it in 2015. The program, which is now global, was created to make sure student voices were part of community conversations about STEM.

He has presented to the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., and met with its president for two hours behind closed doors. He emceed the STEMMY awards in May.

Doerksen found out about the program through his fifth grade principal at Tartesso Elementary School.

“My principal came into our classroom and asked who wanted to be a part of the Chief Science Leadership Program,” Doerksen said. “It was only the second year that the program had been around, and I didn’t know much about it.”

Although he was unsure during the principal’s initial pitch, one word sparked Doerksen’s interest in the program — science.

“I owe it to my parents, who have always encouraged me to be curious and interested in science, and the chief science officer has made me more interested in STEM-related fields,” Doerksen said.

With the encouragement of his parents and a nomination by his peers, Doerksen has flourished in the organization.

“We focus on STEM but also on leadership,” Doerksen said. “Part of that is implementing a STEM-related action plan into our community or our school.”

“This allows us to gain leadership skills, like communicating to help make what we envision a reality,” he said.

During his time with the Chief Science Leadership Program, Doerksen became interested in hardware engineering, but his big dream is to become a film director.

Doerksen compares the program to a TV news broadcast.

“It reminds me of the news and how they have recurring stories and segments but then also have new things all the time,” Doerksen said.

He helps plan “Perspective with CSO Cyra,” named after the channel’s founder.

“We release a show once a month, but a lot of times we’ll create a promotional video that will come out before the episode airs,” Doerksen said. “We try to meet every Wednesday, and we sign up for segments we want to do. Though it can sometimes change and depending on how busy or how free we are, we can take on extra segments or ask other people to pick up our Verrado High School junior Ben Doerksen is a member of the Chief Science Leadership Program and Arizona Leadership Council. He creates YouTube videos to promote STEM. (Photo by Kelly Greene) segments for us.” Doerksen also makes sure every epi-

Each show has a theme, the latest sode ends with ways for viewers to exof which was the correlation between perience STEM. STEM and sports. “We also have a challenge for our

“We reached out to some of our viewers every month to do something partners, and one of them was STEM hands-on that’s STEM related,” DoSports, an organization that shows erksen said. the different math and science behind Though Doerksen has strong dreams sports.” Doerksen said. and goals of his own, he does hope to

“We also highlighted many other as- encourage others to get involved in pects of how stem is incorporated into STEM and, if they can, with the CSO. sports. So, we showed things like how “I hope to help grow my CSO outgravity affects a ball and how the angle reach in my school as well as in my can affect a basketball shot.” community. I also want to help encour-

As for his audience, Doerksen hopes age other CSOs across the state and people of all ages will enjoy the pro- implement my own action plans at my gram. school,” Doerksen said.

“We gear this show toward families Looking forward, Doerksen hopes to who are interested in science, but we continue giving back to this program also encourage other CSOs to watch even after he graduates high school in the episodes as well, because we have 2023. a lot of chief science officers’ things “I look forward to becoming an ingrained into the videos,” Doerksen alumnus and helping out with the prosaid. gram in any way that I can.

Engineering students help community, learn workplace skills

BY MADELINE LEWIS

West Valley View Staff Writer

West Point High School in Avondale opened its doors to students in 2019, welcoming only freshmen and sophomores at the time.

Just two years later, the robotics club is led by Gabriela Gabaldon and Michael Dodge, engineering sciences teachers at West Point.

“We make a great team,” Gabaldon said. “My weaknesses are his strengths.”

Gabaldon was not seeking a teaching job in 2019, but found a place at West Point when she heard about engineering clubs and the school’s career and technical education program.

Along with CTE comes career and technical student organizations.

“Part of the curriculum for CTE is that we have to do CTSOs,” Gabaldon said. “Our main chapter is SkillsUSA.”

The CTSO SkillsUSA is an organization that encourages the education of skills that students will use in the workplace. This organization also hosts West Point’s competitions.

West Point is involved with other organizations, too, like EPICS, Engineering Projects in Community Service. This organization highlights real-world problems and their solutions.

“SkillsUSA is the CTSO for the engineering class, but EPICS is not, so we had to create a new club. The name of the club is robotics club, so we’ll do more robotics eventually,” Gabaldon said.

“Last year we were invited to be part of SHPE as well — the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers,” Dodge said. “Three clubs would be too much, especially for the fi rst year of the club, so all of them are considered part of robotics,” said Gabaldon.

The club’s project started thanks to EPICS. In September, students EPICS. In September, students to do, they created a slideshow were presented with a rewere presented with a re- and video. It’s very simial-world issue: how to get al-world issue: how to get lar to a business plan,” water to remote villages water to remote villages Gabaldon said. in Africa. “This was in Africa. “This was “When we found a good kicking-off a good kicking-off out what Me Hug point because it point because it was requestled to where we are now,” Dodge said.

“The students are “The students are semester-long project,” part of this club because they’re interested in engineering, in building things and being creative. They aren’t just playing; they’re solving real-world problems. They learn that you can make lives better with your creativity, skills and all that you learn in school,” Dodge said.

This process of fi guring out solutions proved a great practice for the students. “This is no longer a theoretical problem; it’s a real one. I think it gives students motivation to solve problems and do well in competitions,” Dodge said.

Just a few months later in January, the club started its major project in partnership with a local nonprofi t. Me Hug serves the parents of children with special needs or disabilities.

Students met with Me Hug and learned about the organization’s goal: to create a car simulator for kids with special needs. This simulator would be used to learn how to drive. The students got to work brainstorming. They created an outline of their project, budget, supplies needed and a prototype of the simulator. “After the students understood what to do, they created a slideshow and video. It’s very similar to a business plan,” Gabaldon said. “When we found out what Me Hug was requesting, we knew it wouldn’t be a monthlong or semester-long project,” Dodge said. “It will take years to get to where they want it, so the club will be working on this going into next year. Right now, they have prototypes and plans that they’ll expand on in the future.” The students have created the business plan pitch, received money for materials and started building. “In the short time we’ve had, we’ve made a lot of progress. From nothing to ideas and prototypes, it’s a job well done so far,” shared Dodge. Around the same time, SkillsUSA started its statewide competitions. The club reworked its pitch to present for SkillsUSA. “The students had to split into teams of three, so one team talked about the simulator itself and the other talked about the training aspect of the project,” Gabaldon said.

After presenting their pitches during the SkillsUSA competitions, the teams won fi rst and third place, and one team will move on to the national competition.

“The team is all the students, not just the three kids. They’re representing the school, and the whole team is behind them,” Dodge said.

“Every person who adds to the club makes it so rich,” Gabaldon said.

Gabaldon and Dodge said the engineering students are incredibly motivated and hardworking.

“Even when we were virtual, they were ready to meet. And even though they’re very young, they can take on that responsibility to get things done,” Dodge said.

Even though school is ending, the robotics club will still be coming to campus.

“Summer is starting, but they’re ready to keep going,” Dodge said.

Nationals start at the end of June, so the students will be working overtime to prepare their pitch and prototypes for the judges.

“Nobody’s going to sleep until we fi nish or get kicked out of the school,” Gabaldon said.

As the students continue with their work over the summer and into the next school year, their club continuously seeks donors to fund its project. If the community would like to assist the club in partnership with the nonprofi t Me Hug, contact Gabriela Gabaldon at gabriela.gabaldon@tuhsd.org.