Non-Profit · 2020 — 2023
STEMbox.
Hands-on science, delivered to your door.
Co-founded a non-profit delivering hands-on STEM experiment kits to elementary students across the Greater Vancouver Area. Three years, 400+ students, 12+ schools.
Co-Founder · Greater Vancouver Area · 2020 — 2023
problem
Elementary science became worksheets and videos.
When schools closed in 2020, hands-on science education stopped. Elementary students in the Greater Vancouver Area had no way to run real experiments or experience science as something physical. Worksheets replaced labs. Videos replaced demonstrations. STEMbox was co-founded to close that gap: designing, assembling, and delivering physical experiment kits directly to students, paired with live virtual instruction.
the product
Every student. Every material. By name.
Each STEMbox kit was built around a single experiment. Materials were individually sourced, portioned, and packed for each student: DNA extraction, electromagnets, buoyancy testing, volcano chemistry, UV bead sunscreen experiments, Alka-Seltzer film canisters, Cartesian divers, and more. Every box was labeled with a student's name, assembled in a garage, and distributed to partner schools across Vancouver.
Assembly on the living room floor: materials portioned for each student.
Finished boxes stacked in the garage, each labeled with a student name.
curriculum · 12+ lessons
Designed, written, and taught from scratch.
Every lesson was created and delivered live, covering physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering for grades 1 through 7. Topics included buoyancy, electromagnets, DNA structure, osmosis, Cartesian divers, the effects of sunscreen on UV radiation, and structural engineering. Each session paired the physical kit with a purpose-built slide deck and live instruction, run virtually during a period when keeping young students engaged across a screen required deliberate design.
Original lesson decks spanning physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering.
impact
Three years. 400+ students. 12 schools.
What began as a direct response to pandemic learning loss grew into a three-year program with school partnerships across the region. Kits were assembled by hand, logistics were managed independently, and curriculum was iterated based on student and teacher feedback each session.
- Students reached
- 400+
- Partner schools
- 12+ across the Greater Vancouver Area
- Years of operation
- 3 continuous years
- Grades served
- Grades 1 through 7
- Subjects covered
- Physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering
recognition
Featured in the Peace Arch News.
The program was recognized for its impact on students and families across the Semiahoo Secondary community during the height of virtual learning.
Featured in Peace Arch News
conviction
Science is something you do.
STEMbox was built on one conviction: a student who has extracted DNA from a strawberry or built a working electromagnet understands science differently than one who has only read about it. The kits were the product. The curiosity was the point.