Standing before a room of elementary school-aged children in early August, Shanshan Liu and Candice Santos — students at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School — posed a simple question to the kids sitting cross-legged on a colorful classroom carpet. “What’s really cool about birds?” they asked.

In the summer of 2025, high schoolers from the School of Science and Engineering (SEM) at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center began to consider how they could give back to local students through their love of science, technology, education and mathematics.

Overlapping chatter in Mandarin and English floated through the room and reverberated from paper cups on a warm Thursday afternoon in Rowland Heights.

With attention-getting projects ranging from art robots and zipline carts to UV houses and zoetropes, local students have founded and operate a now nationwide nonprofit organization bringing hands-on STEM workshops to elementary schools and education centers.