For Beaufort County students, learning doesn’t stop after the school bell rings.

Thanks to the Beaufort County Police Activities League (BCPAL), a group of about 12 students are taking advantage of an afterschool workshop that focuses on science and technology.

These students were recommended for the Afterschool Science and Technology Workshop through the Boys and Girls Club in Washington, which transports them to and from the location of the workshop at the Washington Housing Authority, according to Al Powell, president of BCPAL. The housing authority is allowing them to use its facility for free.

Powell said he enlisted the help of a local couple, Jeremy Peang-Meth and Addie Randall, to lead the workshop. The participants spend the 25 weeks of the program learning how to draw designs, transfer them to a computer design program, then create a model with a 3-D printer and finally compete with one another to see who has the most energy-efficient design, he said.

“We’re creating it from scratch,” Powell said of the workshop. “But it’s a building block opportunity, so it makes sense.”

Peang-Meth and Randall’s two sons are also joining in to help. The two boys, Jetsun and Camin, already work with a team of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) students at Dudley High School in Greensboro and also helped create an energy-efficient, ethanol-run car to compete in the worldwide Shell Eco-marathon.

Peang-Meth said his sons are using their experience with designing and building a car to help connect this level of competition with the skills the students are learning at the workshop. Toward the end of the workshop, the students will build a go-cart in teams.

“They don’t fall off trees like apples,” he said, speaking at Tuesday’s workshop about creating go-carts.

Powell said BCPAL was able to do this afterschool program after being one of 13 applicants, out of 90 originally, to receive a Burroughs Wellcome Fund grant to be used specifically for STEM activities. As part of the grant’s requirements, two college students from East Carolina University, Erica Edreira and Derrick Powell, are collaborating with the program, acting as teaching assistants for the program.

The afterschool workshop is different in that it involves a group of nonprofits collaborating for one cause, something that doesn’t always happen, Powell said.

He said it is also important to spark children’s interest in STEM activities in middle school, as there are not many opportunities so far for this age group.

“The problem is we have a void here in Beaufort County,” Peang-Meth said. “The beautiful thing about technology right now is that it’s accessible.”

Powell said the nonprofit groups are utilizing their talents to collaborate and reach out to Beaufort County students in need in the hopes that they will be exposed to more career fields outside of the classroom and pursue interests in STEM activities.

The Afterschool Science and Technology Workshop is held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 3:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. until Jan. 14 at the Washington Housing Authority. For more information, email Al Powell at beaufortcountypal@hotmail.com.