FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Public Library hosted a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) event for girls on Saturday, and it was all put together by FHS sophomore Caroline Van Pelt.

Van Pelt is a member of Fairfield High School’s chapter of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), and she decided to organize the event for young girls as part of an FBLA project. She invited girls in grades Kindergarten through fifth to participate in a series of fun activities that tested their knowledge of science and engineering.

Twelve members of FBLA joined Van Pelt at the library where they paired off into groups to run six booths, each one with a different hands-on activity. One of them taught the kids how circuit boards work. Another invited the girls to build their own rocket out of paper.

At one station, the girls made structures from toothpicks and marshmallows. A couple of FBLA students put on a science experiment for the girls, showing them how to make “elephant toothpaste” by combining hydrogen peroxide, dish soap and yeast, which together create a foam that rises out of the container.

“I knew that would be a good, non-toxic thing that wouldn’t be a huge mess,” Van Pelt said. “It shows the kids a little chemistry.”

Van Pelt said she got the idea to create a STEM event for girls because it fit nicely into one of the FBLA state competition categories, which is creating a community service project. Van Pelt took the lead on the project, but she did receive help from the chapter’s 47 members, who put together the STEM kits that the girls got to take home. Inside the STEM kit are materials and instructions for how to make a catapult. The girls also got to take home a bag, pens and notebooks courtesy of Agri-Industrial Plastics.

“I started planning this at the end of December,” Van Pelt said. “We started by having an FBLA bake sale at the last two home basketball games, and we raised $230 to buy all the materials here.”

Though the event is done, Van Pelt’s work is just beginning. For the state FBLA competition, she must produce a 17-page report about her community service project, and create a 7-minute presentation.

Just a sophomore, Van Pelt has a few years left before she has to decide what to do after high school, but she’s leaning toward a career in engineering. She said that attending this type of STEM-focused camps when she was younger got her thinking about engineering, and she wants to ensure that other young girls feel supported if they choose to follow that path.

“There are not a lot of girls in STEM,” Van Pelt said. “My eighth-grade year, I was in an Advanced STEM class, and there were only two girls in a class of 25 kids.”

During an FBLA mentor night earlier this school year, Fairfield City Engineer and Public Works Director Melanie Carlson spoke, so Van Pelt invited her to speak again at the STEM event for girls Saturday. Carlson said she appreciated the chance to speak, and that she liked all the ways the FBLA students sought to teach science and engineering through their activities.

Carlson studied civil engineering at Iowa State University, and she noted that civil engineering had about a 50-50 gender balance when she was there. She said each field within engineering has a different gender balance, with chemical engineering being dominated by women, while agricultural engineering is dominated by men.

Carlson attended Sigourney High School, where she was the only girl in her freshman shop class.

“At the high school level, and if you think about all the social peer pressures, it starts so young for girls,” Carlson said.