Mentor High School student Ayesha Faruki’s dedication to STEM education inspires a nationwide summer initiative

By Patricia Nugent

This summer, while most students her age were relaxing and kicking back, 15-year-old Mentor High School student Ayesha Faruki was busy running a virtual STEM summer camp for 25 students from across the country.

As an avid competitor on Mentor’s Science Olympiad teams since 6th grade and a student coach for Memorial and Shore Middle Schools, she says the goal of the Sciology Summer Camp was to address what she saw as a decline in the middle schools’ participation.

“Through the camp, I hoped to bring more students into the sciences and into Science Olympiad programs,” Ayesha says. “I needed a way to show students how fun science and math could be.”

During the free-of-charge, week-long camp, students in grades 6-9 learned about anatomy, physiology, epidemiology, cryptology, microbiology, fossils, optics and more.

“I knew so many people who wanted to learn more about science and continue their Science Olympiad endeavors throughout the summer,” she says. “However, science camps often come with a cost for families, and that shouldn’t be a hindrance to learning opportunities.”

Ayesha planned the lessons herself. They included short informative lectures, interactive activities and competitive games to engage students.

To promote the camp, she shared her ideas with middle school Science Olympiad advisors, who helped spread the word to current and incoming students.

“I want to teach students to foster a love for the sciences and STEM,” says Ayesha, who reports her own future career plans lie in science. “I’ve always been curious about how things work, whether that’s the human body, cells, computers or machines. Science not only is able to answer these questions for me, but also is able to help people across the globe with new discoveries and innovations.”

Through her nonprofit, Ayesha wants to help students to foster a love for the sciences and STEM. She hopes to bring more students into the sciences and into Science Olympiad programs, especially after seeing a previous decrease in participation. Students joined the camp from states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas. Sciology is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

The Mentor School system educates 7,600 students from Pre-K to 12th grade in seven elementary schools, two middle schools, one high school and one school for students with autism. For more information on Ayesha Faruki’s nonprofit Sciology and the Sciology Summer Camp, visit sciology.farukia.repl.co/.