Online Community Student Leader Inspires Peers to Reach for the Stars

By Ed Finkel 

Evie Mason, a rising eighth grader who attends middle school in outer-suburban Algonquin, Ill., started taking in-person classes at CTD when she was 8 and has continued doing so, now mostly online, to take advantage of the variety of enrichment classes being offered. Evie’s experience is an excellent example of a talent development pathway in action—particularly exploration, connecting with peers, and the role of opportunities when available and taken.

Along the way, Evie has learned about the science of color, microscopy, medical engineering, Latin (I, II and III), and the Python programming language. She also took a class called “Stories of Science” in which she made a to-scale model of the Perseverance rover. Overall, she’s found the group-project interactivity and ability to meet peers worldwide (in online classes) as among the most rewarding aspects of CTD.

“CTD brought that togetherness, especially during the pandemic,” she says. “I had a friend in Canada, one in Texas, they were all over the world. It was so cool! It’s amazing how one website can bring so many kids together. We all learn and have a great time.”

During Evie’s first online course, the one about medical engineering, her Canadian friend told her about CTD Backpack for Students, a moderated social media platform through which students interact, learn from one another and get to know one another even better.  

Aimed at students from grade 4 and up enrolled in a CTD course and hosted on the Schoology platform, CTD Backpack’s clubs range from CTD Writers, to Debate, to Chess. A separate CTD Backpack for Parents provides the opportunity to connect with other parents and attend monthly live webinars with CTD’s gifted education experts.

The concept caught on with Evie immediately and intuitively. “I see all these posts—there’s people sharing comics, recent news—and I’m like whoa, there are people on here,” she says. “It opened a new door of communication. I’m teaching myself while teaching my peers and my club members. I’m learning as I go.”

In short order, Evie decided to become a leader of a couple of clubs pertaining to astronomy and environmental science, as well as a moderator for CTD Backpack overall. “I’m usually the one directing discussions,” she says. “Because of CTD, I was able to keep talking through the pandemic. It’s given me the communication skills that everybody lacked during the COVID years. I’m trying to get people out of their shells.”

Compared to commercial social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, CTD Backpack feels safe and protected, Evie says. “We’re all the same age,” she says. “I know I have peers who could be interested in the same things. And people who are not interested in the same things, I get their points of view; the people on CTD are very open, talkative, leadership-sort-of-people, like me.”

As leader of the astronomy club, Evie has structured conversations by day of the week—members are invited to post quotes on Sundays, events on Mondays, trivia on Tuesdays, jokes and comics on Wednesdays, “throwback” items on Thursdays, fun facts on Fridays, and stargazing-related musings on Saturdays.

“I get people participating, which is my goal,” she says. “One person loves posting comics. Another person loves doing trivia. Another person loves doing lengthy throwback-Thursday posts. It’s fascinating finding out what other people like to do. I like memes, comics and jokes because that’s what gets people interested.”

In co-leading the environmental club with several other members, Evie posted on topics like “five things you can do during Earth Day” complete with infographics. “I love collaborating with other CTD members,” she says. “I love the sense of having other people interested in the same things. They are on the same page. They are excited to do this.”

As one of 10 student moderators on CTD Backpack, Evie says her role is to prompt more students to get involved—and to help keep conversations civil. “We’re keeping the clubs active and making sure everything is safe and engaging,” she says. “And keeping people wanting to come back for more.”

Evie leads an astronomy club at her school, too, and she credits the science teacher who sponsors that club, in addition to her parents, for inspiring her love of learning and leadership involvement. She, in turn, enjoys getting her fellow students involved, many of whom know little to nothing about astronomy when they sign up.

“Those people are coming in fresh,” she says. But once they show up, “I can see all of them—they’re like, ‘Whoa, look at this [constellation]. Isn’t that one called Orion?’ I love seeing their discoveries. School is sort of structured where you have the teacher talking, and you’re not allowed to talk unless called on. I love the method where the teacher lets students in on the discussion. That’s what I’m framing in my clubs.”

As if CTD Backpack and her school club weren’t enough, Evie also leads an astronomy club at the local public library, although that’s a “work in progress,” she says, with only herself and the librarian signed up as official members. But there’s also only been one meeting to date. “We have two people signed up for our next meeting. I love having the sense of, maybe I will inspire new astronomers or new astronauts, people excited by the space industry. …“I want to inspire people to look at the night sky and see more than just little specks of lights. I want them to see that, whoa, that’s the Milky Way,” Evie adds. “I want people to be able to know that it’s not just us, on a blue and green orb, in the solar system. There’s so, so, so, so much out there...”

On CTD Backpack, Evie can get those thoughts out—and take in thoughts from others—from a community of like-minded peers. “Maybe one of them will catch on, that, ‘Space is that cool. Taking care of the Earth is that cool. I want to do this,’ ” she says. “That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m going to keep pushing [content] out and waiting until the fish bite.”