AspireED

AspireED's Alyssa Huang teaches students chemistry - by making ice cream in a bag. "Delicious ice cream is based on chemistry," said Alyssa. "Food science was my first introduction to chemistry, which I learned in the kitchen starting in middle school." Alyssa started baking very seriously in 5th grade, when COVID hit and she was looking for a new hobby. She began taking French pastry classes and food science courses online, got hooked, and soon launched her own baking business, which she...

After three and half weeks of patient waiting, the butterflies have emerged! The students have been writing their observations in journals, documenting how caterpillars ate and grew continuously, then climbed to the top of their cup, created a silk button, hung upside down, and transformed into chrysalids. We transferred the chrysalids into a butterfly pavillion. The chrysalids quivered from time to time when touched or if the pavillion shook gently, but were otherwise quiet. Then one day, a...

Alyssa Huang from AspireED's summer team introduces 1st and 2nd graders to insects by building live ant hills. "Ants are cool!" the kids exclaim. One thing we've learned: kids love live creatures :) Alyssa Huang, Jasmine Angulo, and Meerab Irfan introduced students to what makes up an insect: 6 legs, 3 segments (head, thorax, abdomen), and an exoskeleton. "What's an exoskeleton?" they asked. "Ants don't have bones like us," we responded, "Instead, they have exoskeletons, or hard outer shells,...