Get to Know Your Clubs & Committees: Women In STEM Club launches at Greenwood

An excited chatter of possibilities filled the Student Success Centre one September Tuesday during the first meeting of Greenwood’s new Women in STEM Club. Students from Grades 9 to 12 gathered to learn more about the club and the upcoming Ontario Tech University (OTU) Robotics Competition. All were welcome.

The Women in STEM club started as part of Greenwood’s Robotics Club. Last year, a team entered the OTU Robotics Competition and earned that contest’s “Women in STEM Award.”

After the contest, the group continued to meet each week, and decided they wanted to do more to raise the profile of Women in STEM at Greenwood.

“Our goal is to run events and activities around the school and inspire people in the younger grades,” said Julia McLennan ‘25. “When I took Computer Science back in Grade 10, I was the only girl from my grade and there were just a handful of girls from other grades. I really want girls to know they are represented in STEM, and that they have safe spaces to learn here at Greenwood.”

Kylie Armstrong ‘25 agreed. She took Computer Science in Grade 11 and learned about the robotics competition through that class.

“When we were at the OTU competition, there were a lot of women role models there helping out and that was really inspiring for me,” she said. “I really wanted to come back to Greenwood and be that for other younger students. Being a dominant team at the OTU competition felt really empowering!”

While the focus for the Fall is prepping for the Robotics Competition, the club wants to also bring in guest speakers who work or study in STEM, and start STEM Everywhere events so that more students at Greenwood can explore these concepts.

“There are a lot of good opportunities for STEM at Greenwood,” said Izzy Litwin ‘26.
“We want to help showcase that and to help improve the experience of younger students because they will know about the options.”