The Henry Grew School
On Friday January 23, 2026, the Michael B. Silevitch and Claire J. Duggan Center for STEM Education hosted 40 fourth grade Boston Public School students from the Henry Grew School in Hyde Park for another successful STEM field trip! Several Northeastern student volunteers helped teach and facilitate activities throughout the day.
The Grew students first learned about civil and mechanical engineering and the engineering design process by designing and building free-standing paper towers. Some teams’ designs spanned an impressive 20 inches tall! Then, using the engineering design process to guide their iterations, students revised and eagerly tested new designs with an additional sheet of paper to push their ideas farther!
Makeshift catapult example!
Students continued their focus on civil and mechanical engineering by building their own catapults. They learned about the difference between accuracy (close to the target) and precision (consistency), which are key engineering concepts. Using popsicle sticks, tape, rubber bands, and a plastic spoon, students designed and built catapults in small teams to launch small projectiles at Nick and volunteer Franklin – scoring points for hitting different body parts! Overall, we saw many successful catapults and every team scored at least one point.
We followed this up by transitioning to a biomedical engineering activity: a reverse egg drop challenge! Students learned that bioengineers make devices to protect important parts of our body, like our brain. In this design challenge, the egg represents a human brain. Teams used consumable materials such as cardboard, paper plates, and cotton balls to make a capsule that catches an egg and prevents it from cracking when dropped from a height. Many eggs survived their fall – congratulations Grew engineers!
Throughout the day, volunteers answered students’ questions about college, high school, engineering, and extracurricular activities. We wrapped the day up with a quick college campus tour of Northeastern as the students departed, sharing their thoughts:
• “I learned that I am an engineer.”
• “I learned that you can be any engineer with imagination!“
• “I learned that engineers are problem solvers.”
• “I learned to not give up.”
• “I learned how to work together.”
A Grew school teacher/volunteer also shared that they appreciated “how helpful [the Northeastern students] college friends were to keep the fun alive!” Thank you to the Henry Grew School students, teachers and their chaperones for a fantastic STEM field trip!
