COEUR d’ALENE — For fourth and fifth graders in the Health Science Club at Fernan STEM Academy, the last Tuesday before winter break meant a change was in the air.

“The last day of STEM club, no,” Henry Linder uttered when he learned the news.

Led by Coeur d'Alene High School student coaches Izzie Le and Brook Parkinson, with help from Fernan teacher Kristen Thomas, the pilot program was composed of a small, but interested group of kids interested in learning more about science where it intersects with medical practices.

The last session for the Health Science Club recapped some of the medical fields and the lab exercises that brought some of the concepts to life. A favorite one was the neurology segment in which the students assembled models of neurons with candy, toothpicks and post-it notes. 

Sessions touched upon dentistry, cardiology and genetics, in addition to neurology, and Le went around the room asking everyone which field they would be most interested in pursuing when they grew up.

Abigail Barajas said, “I would work in cardiology, because that was the first time I heard my heartbeat.”

Brantley Musser was curious about geneticists. “I think it would be really cool to learn about genes,” he said.

Henry Linder was interested in the workings of our hearts and was most interested in learning more about cardiologists. Cayden Morris thinks that his home dental practices could be improved, so he figured becoming a dentist might be a good way to tighten his own behavior. Cannon Randklev wanted to help people with their hearts and was most interested in the cardiology field. Kolbi Nolan’s medical interest lies in understanding the human body’s neurology.

As a student board member for Growing the STEM, Le said that the club formed over the summer as an idea that she felt compelled to immediately start working on a curriculum for.

“I want to be a surgeon and wanted to create more opportunities for future medical students,” Le said.

The group wound up meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays for the last few weeks to find fun and accessible ways for the students to conduct their own DNA extraction or learn how saliva works on breaking down sweet versus savory substances.

Thomas said that Le was especially motivated to find and share her interests with like-minded students at Fernan and even taught herself how to use graphic design elements on Canva to bring the fascinating world of medical sciences to life for the younger students in the club.

“I was really nervous that we wouldn’t have anyone sign up,” Le said of the first few days after the club invitation went home to parents. 

Her fears, however, wound up being in vain and there wound up being six kids in total participating in the club.

“I like that it was smaller because we could focus more on everyone,” Parkinson said. 

Some of the students have parents in health sciences and so already had an interest to learn more.

“You can help somebody so that they’re not always hurting,” Randklev said. 

Nutrition wasn’t something that was covered in this initial presentation of the club, but if there’s enough interest, the club could return in the 2024/2025 school year.

Until then, the participating students joked about meeting up on other Tuesdays to keep up their interests.

 (Left to right) Student coaches Brook Parkinson and Izzie Le stand by Cannon Randklev, Cayden Morris, teacher Kristin Thomas, Henry Linder, Kolbi Nolan, Brantley Musser, and Abigail Barajas pose by one of the STEM slides used for Health Science CLub at Fernan STEM Academy.
  

    One of the projects in Health Science Club involved making neurons from candy and toothpicks. Students labeled different points of the neuron as they went.