Sherae Honeycutt

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Original Post

At School Day at the K on Thursday, kids experienced science on a big scale, but they also got to try their hand at it.

Bayer Pharmaceuticals is teaming up with students at Wyandotte High School. They want to show younger kids what’s so cool about science.

“This is to further some STEM education, and provide some fun, and pique the interest of some students,” said Bayer chemist, Quamar Salih.

What better way than to co-sponsor the event.

“We put some alka-selter into a little film canister, and we launch it with a launcher. We’ve created a little baseball diamond where we can have students launch them out,” Salih said.

They are also teaming with the Wyandotte teens. The school received a grant from Bayer for their Science Ambassador program where students learn and then present the information to students across the metro.

“Science can be fun, it doesn’t have to be boring, and you can make really cool things about it. Like different experiments, like you can make new stuff basically using science, because science is a big part of our lives now,” said Wyandotte High School freshman, Katerin Molina.

Their biology teacher, Sarah Gentry, is proud.

“It’s almost like being a mom. You get that warm fuzzy feeling inside when you see them grow up. We’ve seen our kids gain these incredible presentation skills that they didn’t have in the beginning,” Gentry said.

“I like that we get to go out and explain to people what they are, and the amount of faces that light up when we tell them about this,” said Wyandotte High student, Jesus Hernandez.

So whether you popped one into left field or teach others what you know, who knew a day at the park could be such an experiment?

“Science is fun, and we can do anything with science,” Molina said.

Gentry said next year new students will be mentored by kids who went through the program this year. The program has nearly 70 kids enrolled.