LOS ANGELES — California teenager Katelyn Liu has transformed a grassroots library project into an international science network, building 21 active chapters across six U.S. states and seven countries to teach practical engineering to underserved students. Her organization, WOW! That’s STEM, has now reached 15,163 young people through hands-on technical experiments. She launched the venture in 2022. It began with simple homemade catapults and miniature wind turbines.
Having experienced self-doubt about whether she belonged in technical fields while growing up, Liu set out to dismantle the barriers confronting girls and low-income children. Rather than leaving science locked inside dense textbooks, she cold-emailed public libraries and YMCAs across Southern California. Rejections piled up early. Yet she pressed ahead, walking directly into community centers with handmade lesson prototypes to prove that elementary school students could assemble working robots from scratch.
Today, the youth-run nonprofit collaborates with 48 institutional partners, embedding technical workshops across Title I elementary schools, regional libraries, and youth associations. More than 60 trained teenage volunteers now design and steer the curriculum, logging 5,895 documented service hours. They do not teach abstract theory. Instead, students build functioning catapults, fabricate miniature wind generators, and code basic robotics hardware.
The expansion pushed past earlier operational benchmarks recorded during her Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes recognition, which cataloged 375 workshops and 13,000 distributed kits. Latest verified program figures show the nonprofit has conducted 459 workshops and assembled 18,525 individual STEM kits for direct distribution worldwide.
| Operational Metric | Verified Milestone |
|---|---|
| Global Footprint | 21 Chapters across 6 U.S. States & 7 Countries |
| Community Partners | 48 Libraries, YMCAs & Title I Schools |
| Students Reached | 15,163 Young Participants |
| Workshops Conducted | 459 Interactive Sessions |
| STEM Kits Distributed | 18,525 Assembly Units |
| Volunteer Hours Logged | 5,895 Hours by 60+ Teen Mentors |
Liu, an Eagle Scout, has tied mechanical engineering directly to environmental field work, targeting dense neighborhoods in Los Angeles where asphalt sprawl limits contact with nature. Concrete traps heat. Park space remains scarce across many working-class districts, shutting young residents out of local biodiversity studies. To bridge the divide, her chapters guide students onto wildlife tracking hikes, coordinate urban habitat restoration, and run empirical community science trials.
Backed by a dedicated microgrant from Roots & Shoots USA, Liu is introducing biodiversity research modules directly into Los Angeles public classrooms. Financing the network requires relentless local hustle. Teen volunteers raise cash by organizing neighborhood restaurant benefit nights, selling goods at street festivals, and winning targeted philanthropic grants, all while packaging science kits by hand for overseas shipment.
The nonprofit is currently training its next cohort of teenage mentors to expand kit distribution and prepare upcoming urban biodiversity field sessions scheduled across Southern California Title I schools this spring.