Find Your STEM is a unique event for high school students, and those preparing to enter high school. The model is to have attending students engage with near peer mentors who will be the voice of STEM at their level. 

The pre-registered attending students, approximately 72, will be greeted by over 30 teen and adult volunteers upon check-in at 8:30. Parents are encouraged to come in and observe the conference. A networking continental breakfast is served while students get their nametags, t-shirts, and other swag/memorabilia of the event. There will be a photo-shoot area for groups who want to have a special memento. During the breakfast and check-in period, teen presenters will give their two-to-three-minute explanations of their STEM experiences in middle and high school. Posters will be engaging with photos and bullet points, especially for programs that are available free in our North Carolina Triad Region. 

Following a brief welcome plenary session, attendees will break into groups, be issued their lab aprons, and proceed to one of the assigned chemistry labs to start their hands-on activities such as titrations and chromatography, techniques that are used across many fields of science. Each student will experience several high school and college level laboratory techniques and experiments, assisted by upper-level high school and undergraduate level college instructors. 

Attendees will then take a campus tour of the science and technology buildings and enjoy lunch at the Fountain View Dining Hall. While in the dining hall building, students will have the opportunity to visit the E-Sports arena.

Following lunch, the group will walk to the Bryan School of Business and Economics. 

UNC Greensboro’s Joseph M. Bryan School for Business and Economics is the first university in the state of North Carolina to receive $1 million in grant funding and wraparound support from Google’s Cybersecurity Clinics Fund.  

The Find Your STEM conference is expected to conclude at 2:00 p.m. Volunteers will accompany students back to the free parking areas at Walker and McIver Decks. As they walk across campus, they will experience Science Everywhere, a family friendly event that is also part of the NC Science Festival. 

Find Your STEM brings middle and high school students to an event that is designed especially for them.

Goals and Desired Outcomes

Find Your STEM on Saturday April 5, 2025 is designed to encourage high school students, and those preparing to enter high school, to take science and technology classes in preparation for careers in STEM fields. The model is to create an engaging environment with hands-on activities as well as one-on-one networking with near peer mentors.  

Our desired outcome is to have 72 attending students, 12 to each chemistry lab, who will work in pairs with instruction from upper-level high school and undergraduate college lab assistants. 

Total attendance, teen mentors, and adult volunteers will be between 100 and 150.

Six teen near peer mentors will be selected to present posters that describe and demonstrate how those students “found their STEM”. This poster session is a key component of our effort to create a conference type event in the atrium where attendees will network and ask questions of those who have more recently experienced the transition to high school STEM courses in preparation for college and beyond. 

Our attendees will benefit from the collegiate atmosphere including: 

– interactive activities in state-of-the-art college freshman labs with activities such as titrations and chromatography – skills that are used across the sciences. These labs are in the UNCG Nursing and Instruction Building. The activities are designed to have students use instrumentation and equipment that is typically introduced at the college level. Teams of 12 will rotate through 35 minutes in each of three labs over a 2-hour period. 

 – Attendees will use a passport to visit each of the six poster presentations in the atrium lobby. There will also be online tools including a MailChimp Find Your STEM Newsletter which will track each attendees e-visits to tools and narratives on “finding your STEM. 

– After the college-experience luncheon, attendees will proceed to the Bryan School of Business and Economics to learn about the unique UNCG Spartan Cyber Security Center including the cyber academy which will be open to high school applicants. The purpose of highlighting this particular academic center is to show students that technology translates across all fields of study and offers opportunities outside of science and engineering.

– post event surveys and interviews will help us plan future Find Your STEM events which are currently in its eighth year.