Nearly North Pole News

Teens Teach STEM is an organization of Lyons Township High School students founded by Grace Rhoten, who wrote a cookbook called Edible Engineering over the summer. The cookbook, inspired by her experience founding a kids’ science camp and running a home baking business, explains the science behind each recipe, allowing readers to turn their kitchen into a lab. They were inspired to start this program because STEM allows us to build confidence and resilience by persevering through failure. They believe that everyone should be able to harness their creativity and have the opportunity to innovate in a way that is fun, not intimidating. Their current goal is to fundraise enough money to donate 250 copies of our book and ingredient kit to the Westchester Food Pantry in time for the holidays. In the future, they would like to donate a copy of our book to libraries, other local food pantries, and Chicago Public Schools. Baking is an accessible way to learn about difficult topics while also bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds. Some activities in the book include creating a model of DNA out of marshmallows, learning about the Maillard reaction through brown butter blondies, building a cupcake delivery car, and discovering the power of protein through Greek yogurt scones. The book also has data tables to record experiments and pages of STEM career options related to the activities. If you are interested in donating, you can purchase a book (buy one, give two) here: Or donate to our GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/teens-teach-stem