Junior High School students exploring careers in STEM

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Youth in Science Rapid City hosted their annual Women in science conference with more than 800 seventh-grade girls from the Rapid City area schools to learn about STEM careers.

Amy Hasvold was introduced to the benefits of engineering at a young age.

“After interviewing a female engineer in fourth grade. And so I was inspired to get involved with this conference because I know the impact it can have in changing a girl’s path to find their career and passion,” said Youth and Science Rapid City, President, Amy Hasvold.

Research shows that middle school girls start to lose interest in math and science, so the stem conference is a way to show young girls that science and math are for everyone.

“Probably science mostly, with all these amazing science teachers like Mr. Mantello. I’ve been seeing a lot of different experiments, a lot of different labs, and seeing what different things have in common with each other,” said a 7th grader, Nevaea Willatt.

Now that Stem is part of the Black Hills area schools’ curriculum, young girls can explore another career option.

“We hope that girls take more math and science classes in middle school and high school and eventually go on to pursue a STEM career,” said Hasvold.

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