By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

A few students at Scripps Middle School spent some time last week attending the “Girls Can Blast Off Into STEM” workshop.

The workshop, led by International Academy student and Scripps Middle School alumni Neha Dwibhashyam was created with the goal of getting girls interested in careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

As junior at IA, Dwibhashyam is a National Merit Scholarship, received a perfect ACT score, is the Captain of the IA Aero-Astro club and aspires to be a rocket scientist.

For three days the students met after-school to learn about STEM, how rockets work and how to build their own.

Dwibhashyam decided to start the workshop because she wished there was something similar offered to her when she was a student at Scripps, she said.

On their last day, the four students individually launched their model rockets outside of SMS.

They were joined by principal Dan Haas, sixth grade science teacher Karen Thornton and surprise guests — Stadium Drive students on their extra recess.

The four students took turns counting down and launching their individual rockets for the crowd.

Everyone watched as all four rockets took flight with one even launching high enough to find its way to the roof.

According to Dwibhashyam, 2.4 million STEM jobs were unfilled in the US in 2018.