Spotlight on West Hempstead Secondary School’s STEM Program

WEST HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — The life of a high schooler presents all sorts of challenges. 
When the STEM department at West Hempstead Secondary School was presented with a Long Island water quality challenge, they entered and won. 
“They won the Long Island Regional Planning Council Award. It was a contest for nitrogen pollution and preventing runoff into the oceans and the bays on the island,” teacher Salvatore Trupia explained. “They did a really good job with it.”
“Two years ago, I was trying to come up with a project for the Long Island Nitrogen Action Plan, which aims to reduce the pollution in our water and around the areas on Long Island. So we came up with this rain garden, which actually kind of cleans the water as it evaporates into the air,” said senior Farell Sanchez. “We kind of tried to create a big rain garden for the school, so it could clean more water.”
“Every single time it rained, this was basically a beach, it was like swimming in the ocean again,” another student Harpreet Kaur said.
These are not your average high schoolers. They’re full of award-winning ideas and minds, and they have a grant to do this important work, which future classes with build on while honoring the creators.
“I’m so excited. I mean, first off, I just really like planting, gardening. So it was that, but it’s also I see all my hard work and my pride and joy of this assignment, and how much the long hours we spent working on it come to fruition, and it just filled me with a sense of pride,” said student Vera Hametz. “Also, it makes me even prouder knowing that the future generations and grades will get to enjoy this too.”
“We’re going to have a plaque that’s going to be coming in with the names on it. I don’t know when that’s supposed to come in, but it’s going to have everyone who worked on it and our teacher, because he helped us a lot,” senior Maya Flam added.
Hydroponics is also a big part of the program, which grows fruits and vegetables for the student body. Right now, they’re growing everything from peppers to eggplants and basil. 
“I think it’s amazing, because we get to help our school community. Last year, we made lettuce plants and we gave it to a haven, which is a small cafeteria where they sell a bunch of stuff, like snacks, coffee, etc.,” said student Michelle Cherian. 
These great young minds spend their downtime thinking of ways to elevate their game. Family STEAM Night is an annual science prom for incredible ideas.
“We took our biology lesson of cell organelles and turned it into a project about slime for the younger kids, where they learned about the organelles through the creation of that slime,” student Constance Berry-Rowley said. 
“They loved it. We had a line out the door the whole night, like it was, it was crazy. Everyone wants to be there,” said senior Madison Cates. 
“Our bioluminescent project, we learned about bacterial recombinants in AP Bio, so we wanted to simplify this complicated concept into something kids would love to interact with,” student Emily Cherian explained. “So we decided on making Dr. Facilier’s bioluminescent lab. So Dr. Facilier is a character from Disney. Kids love that. And we made lava lamps. So we let the kids mix their own glowing mixture with oil, and they had fun with that.”
“We had a line out the door. Ran out of materials, very, very chaotic. It was so much fun,” said student Jasmine Jean-Charles.
“We all come together — the little kids can come to the high school, experience a little bit of what we do, and we can teach them, and it helps us connect with them, and it helps them get excited for the future,” Cates added.