Chamblee High School, with its magnet program and many AP classes, has no shortage of accomplished students. This trend is taken to the next level, however, by fourteen-year-old Temple Lester (‘25), a freshman whose company, Just Temple, has exposed more than 100,000 children and teens to science, technology, engineering, and math.

Lester has grown her company over nearly six years with the goal of getting girls and minorities interested in STEM from a young age.

“My company launched when I was nine on my birthday,” she said. “The company launch was inspired by this time when I was seven or eight and I went to a science summer camp. I was the only girl there and one of the only minorities there as well. The camp counselors called me ‘princess’ and I was like, ‘I don’t want to be a princess at a science camp.’ So I stood up for myself and learned about how there’s a big gap between men and women in STEM, and very few minorities in STEM. So I decided to expose other kids who look like me to it and learn how to advocate not only for myself, but for others.”

Lester said she learned how to run the company from her family support system.

“I’ve been around entrepreneurs my whole life,” she said. “My mom’s an entrepreneur, my dad’s an entrepreneur, both are public speakers. […] My family and friends helped me out when I first started in third grade, I had a website and a YouTube channel that I launched to show my peers that science can be fun.”

While the company initially didn’t sell anything, it later expanded its horizons.

“It started as a company but it wasn’t selling anything, it was just YouTube videos,” said Lester. “But in 2018 I launched my T-shirts, which are about raising awareness to how STEM can be fun. And then in 2019, I launched my box and kind of progressed into an actual business.”

Lester’s STEM Swag Box is a science kit that contains fun and interactive experiments designed to help children discover their interests in different branches of STEM.

“In the box, there’s seven different experiments,” she said. “All different types of sciences, from [biology] to chemistry. […] So there’s different things like slime in there, or my favorite is a plant seed ball made out of recycled paper and plant seeds. There’s just so many different things that can expose kids to different types of science or let them learn more about what they’re already interested in.”

The kit is designed for a wide range of ages.

“[The target audience] for my boxes is elementary and middle school kids,” said Lester. “Young kids like kindergartners would need more help with it, and as they get older they don’t need help. I’d say kindergarten to eighth grade is the age range [for the kit.] And then whenever I’m speaking I prefer to speak to kids my age because speaking inspires them more than just doing experiments like the little kids.”

Lester’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Over the past few years, she has been recognized both locally and nationally for her STEM advocacy.

“There’s a few accomplishments that I’ve been so proud of,” she said. “At the beginning of 2021 for Black History Month, about a year ago, Netflix posted me for their Black History [feature] exposing kids to Black girls who are doing incredible things. And then a couple of weeks ago, I was featured on Nickelodeon’s Time Kid of the Year, which I think is my biggest accomplishment so far.”

It hasn’t all been easy, however. Lester said that getting over embarrassment and building up her confidence has been a challenge over the years.

“I’ve grown a lot to tell people what I do, especially my peers,” she said. “I used to be so embarrassed to tell my friends what I do. My mom used to make me phone videos wherever we’d go. If we were on a field trip or something, I would get away from all my friends to do it.”

Now, however, Lester is comfortable in her role. And she doesn’t intend to slow down any time soon.

“It’s important to expose [people] to STEM because there’s so few girls and minorities in it, and people do what they see,” she said. “If you don’t see anybody that looks like you doing something, then you don’t really want to do it. So my job is to kind of show people that you can do because you can be one of the first.”