TechSavvy and STEMtastic return to University of Jamestown with over 270 students
Between more than 270 and about 310 middle-school students attended TechSavvy and STEMtastic at the University of Jamestown's Reiland Fine Arts Center.
More than 270 area seventh- and eighth-grade students filled the University of Jamestown campus for TechSavvy and STEMtastic, a one-day series of hands-on STEM workshops held in the Reiland Fine Arts Center on March 2, 2026. Attendance tallies vary by source: AAUW Jamestown posted "over 300," the Jamestown Sun reported "more than 280," Gateway to Science captioned "about 310 students from eight schools attended," and event materials referenced "more than 270" participants.
Organized on the University of Jamestown campus with Jamestown AAUW, the event was co-chaired by Erica Althoff, an engineer with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in North Dakota, and Joan Enderle of Jamestown AAUW. "The events would not be possible without the tremendous support of local, state and regional companies sending their STEM professionals to lead hands-on workshops," Althoff said. Althoff added, "Students who have participated in the event have enjoyed it."
Jamestown Sun and Techsavvynd materials list 32 hands-on and interactive workshops across the day, and Gateway to Science confirmed each student participated in three hands-on workshops. Topics scheduled and presented included aerospace, artificial intelligence, chemistry, dentistry, electronics, engineering, forensic science, nursing, drones, robotics and wildlife biology. Organizers ran separate TechSavvy sessions for girls and STEMtastic sessions for boys; Gateway noted that TechSavvy is a national AAUW program first offered in Jamestown in 2014.
Workshop examples on campus included a CSI: Jamestown forensic rotation led in part by Janet Rosario, program director of North Dakota's Gateway to Science, and a medical skills segment where "the girls in the workshop learned about injections and wound management, tasks that Entzminger said she does every day in her work," according to Gateway captioning. Techsavvynd listed hands-on challenges such as "Tower Tactics: The Ultimate Index Card Challenge" staged in the Reiland Auditorium.
Techsavvynd published a full-day schedule with arrival at 9:10 a.m., three workshop blocks, staggered lunch windows for Jamestown and rural groups, a closing session at 2:10-2:30 p.m. in Reiland Fine Arts Center Auditorium, and bus loading at 2:30 p.m. The site also advised schools that "Nametag packets will be sent to the schools the week before the event for distribution" and that "JMS teachers will receive packets with name tags for their homerooms which they will need to hand out to the students the morning of March 2nd." AAUW continued to solicit volunteers, noting opportunities range "from a couple hours to others that are for the day (8:30 am – 2:30 pm)" and instructing: "Please respond to (/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#f2989d939cdc979c9697809e97b2959f939b9edc919d9f) with your name, email, phone number and where you would like to volunteer. You are welcome to invite a friend or spouse to join in the fun."
Sources list differing rosters of participating schools; Jamestown Sun named Jamestown Middle School, Medina, Montpelier, Gackle-Streeter, Barnes County North, St John’s Academy, Victory Christian School and homeschool students, while Gateway and Techsavvynd included additional rural districts such as Pingree-Buchanan, Litchville-Marion, Hillcrest, Edgeley and Kensal. Organizers say the mix of college campus atmosphere, role-model professionals and hands-on challenges aims to encourage middle-schoolers to picture careers in science, technology, engineering and math as attainable next steps.
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