Shari Campbell
STEMBeez President | Co-Founder
STEMBeez has come a long way from it’s humble beginning. We started our program working with Broward College at the South Campus on Pines Boulevard.
We created the curriculum around Chemistry, Biology, and Microbiology, and Physics. Honestly, I think we had more fun than the kids!
One of the things that really makes our program different from the rest is that we are not only introducing new and exciting topics to our students, but we reinforce recall. Recall is a major component of the curriculum as it enforces the material. I could not believe it when we had students saying terms like Streptococcus and Bacilli 4 weeks after they learned them! The curriculum has proven to be effective and resulted in strong permanence.
As a woman in a STEM field, it fuels me to see these young minds engaging in topics that many do not learn until college. You can see the wonder and excitement in their attentiveness and their desire to ensure that the meniscus on the graduated cylinder reads exactly 10 milliliters. Many things make me smile, but this serves as pure happiness.
These past coming years have been trials for everyone.
As our country continues to open, and we begin to hug our family members again, COVID-19 continues to replicate and affect our those we love.
The Board Members and I worked diligently to create our Online Camp in 2020. We restructured, rearranged, and reimagined our curriculum to ensure that students could perform the hands-on components safely from home. Through the hurdles of that year, we were successful. We are thankful to all the parents and students that helped to make that camp so successful.
The positive feedback that we received has given us the motivation to ensure that an online camp will always be available for our students moving forward. This aids our ability to bring our fun an quirky personality to the United States! I can’t contain my excitement.
Jonelle Orridge, PhD
StembeeZ Vice President | Lead Curriculum Specialist
Organized chaos is a phrase that Jonelle uses to describe how she has been deflected off her original path to become a health inspector so many times. However, the different experiences encountered has led her to a career that she ismost passionate about.
She realized that she had an appreciation of all science when she attended Brooklyn Technical High School (New York) where she majored in bio-medical science. She attended St. John’s University and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with a minor in Environmental Science. She interned in the coral research lab at the New York Aquarium where she was responsible for coral husbandry. The director of the research lab, who was located at Columbia University, took her under his wing and allowed her to continue project development at that institution. He asked if she considered going further and pursuing a Ph.D. She was not aware of this degree before he mentioned he mentioned it, and it sparked her interest.
Jonelle went to the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School where she completed her Ph. D in Ecology, Evolution and Animal Behavior. During her graduate career, she completed a GK-12 fellowship whose purpose was for STEM graduate students to bring their dissertation research and findings into K-12 learning settings. During this time she worked with elementary and high school teachers to promote science inquiry by creating curriculum from her dissertation research. This experience showed her that she had a gift for teaching and curriculum development. No matter the grade level, the students were always engaged and able to absorb the information that I delivered.
Jonelle is now an Associate professor at Broward College where she continues her passion and enthusiasm for positive and meaningful interactions between her students through an active learning curriculum
Kim Simmons
Stembeez Communications
STEM is a passion and an important part of my life and the future of our country and world. It is extremely important for the younger generation to not only have an understanding but an appreciation for it.
STEMBeez gives me the ability to share my passion with future scientists.
It also affords me the opportunities to help open and grow the minds of the individuals that will be responsible for our future in the STEM fields.
Debbie Maxwell
stembeez Laboratory Specialist
I began to develop an interest in science when I was a teenager. My biology and chemistry teachers were fun and energetic and expressed such a passion for science that encouraged me to pursue science. After graduating from college I had an opportunity to follow my passion and to make it a career. This opportunity is not always possible others who have the same passion I have.
STEMBeez was created to fill a gap and to provide a platform where young girls and boys have the opportunity to experience STEM when they otherwise would not get access to it.
STEMBEEZ gives me the opportunity to share my passion with others.
