It’s not very often that you approach a six-year-old with the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And they respond with, “I want to be a neuroscientist that specializes in prosthetics!” Now, this isn’t necessarily because neuroscience is an unappealing career path for little kids. Rather, it’s because children aren’t exposed to the numerous fields of STEM until much later in life, and probably couldn’t even tell you what neuroscience is (unless they are an avid Grey’s Anatomy fan). This places kids in a box, causing them to be unable to think of possible passions or careers outside of what they know. The issue with this theoretical “box” is that young kids could likely form deep love for STEM careers, such as neuroscience, if they were only given exposure to it.
Nikhita Kaushik, the president of the neuroscience-focused youth organization, SCYNA, has always had a passion for sharing her love of neuroscience with youth. Over the summer, she was encouraged by one of the members of her organization, Avery Mizrahi, who also happens to be the Vice President of Book Bears, to collaborate with Book Bears on an event series that would expose young kids to the wonders of neuroscience and other STEM fields. Kaushik, who typically focuses her organization on older youth, was thrilled with this idea and immediately jumped in. As people who both share a fondness for neuroscience and the intellectual growth of youth, Mizrahi and Kaushik (along with other fantastic coordinators) created the event series entitled “Brainy Books.”
I had the privilege of conducting an interview with Kaushik and Mizrahi this past week, and learned the ins and outs of this incredible event series. When asked about what sort of impact they felt that they had made with this event, their faces both lit up with smiles and their eyes brightened with excitement. Kaushik proceeded to share a story of how after the first Brainy Books event, she was approached by her young neighbor who was seemingly enthralled by what he had learned in the first event. The first event taught a short lesson about prosthetics, and how they work with the brain to help those with missing limbs. Kaushik’s young neighbor expressed feeling fascinated by the way prosthetics worked and claimed that he couldn’t wait to explore that category of neuroscience further. Kaushik continued to explain how that experience encouraged her to continue working diligently with the entire event series: “That small incident made me feel like ‘Oh my gosh, the things that we’re doing are having such a big impact on these younger kids,’ and that… gave us the inspiration to keep working hard.”
Mizrahi jumped right in after Kaushik finished sharing her story, and proceeded to explain how this event really brought out the needed discussion of how you can exercise STEM research and confidence in STEM, even at such a young age. She explained how the kids that participated in the event series slowly but surely began opening up more, raising their hands in discussions, asking questions, and demonstrating a genuine interest in what they were learning:
“This is why we need to be encouraging confidence in STEM at a young age because it really can develop a life-long passion that otherwise may have not been discovered.”
Being able to see how kids began to truly enjoy the Brainy Book activities, such as the STEM PhD coloring book (where kids got to learn about the numerous career paths in STEM), or the collaborative word searches that they would do together coordinators were determined to make it worth it. I think it’s safe to say that they definitely did. STEM is an essential aspect of our lives, and to create a generation of future STEM enthusiasts is one of the many things we can do to make our world a better place.
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