STEM camps spark girls to aim new horizons

TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Jesna Fathima was vacillating between teaching and medicine as a prospective career when she discovered: "If I do engineering, I can do a lot more things." That thought didn't just randomly arise in her mind, rather it resulted from the STEM camp organised in her school by the Centre for Learning Engineering and Sustainable Education and the department of education, under the University of Kerala.

- ASWIN ASOK KUMAR @T'Puram

Starting in 2023, the centre has been providing training camps in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) for students -- from Classes 7 to 9 -- coming from weaker socioeconomic backgrounds. Two camps have already been conducted in Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram, the second of which Jesna attended. The centre aims to organise more camps, one in each district within this academic year and end the series with a project exhibition.