STEAM Night/Maker Faire 2019
February 7 – When asked about STEAM Night/Maker Faire 2019, Assistant Head of School Mitch Flatow was exuberant. “By all accounts, STEAM Night was a “roaring” success,” he said. “There was so much to challenge and educate. I didn’t know where to go first!” The Pardes campus was buzzing with excitement for the entire evening as students and their families delved into the world of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. It was unmistakable that this year’s STEAM Night was yet another huge hit!
There was no shortage of engaging activities for students and parents to explore. While specially-designed opportunities were on hand for each grade level- as described below – a;; were encouraged to explore individual interests, regardless of the assigned grade level.
In the Kindergarten classrooms, students enjoyed Art Spinners and floating ball activities. First grade classrooms provided Lego Card Challenges and Second grade classrooms enabled students to examine surface tension by seeing how many drops of water could fit on a penny. Elsewhere, students visiting the Third grade classrooms took on an engineering challenge by designing bridges that could hold the weight of several pennies, while students stopping into the Fourth grade classrooms created pan flutes from straws and paper.
In Art, students designed and created 3D models of their perfect playground, using colored paper. In the MPR, Fifth graders were Flipping for Science as students applied the scientific method to flip water bottles filled with different volumes of water and other substances.
At the Space Station, students worked in groups of four to complete the ISS Docking Challenge. They practiced their communication, cooperation, and perseverance skills while attempting to work as a team to move their vehicle from the starting line to the ISS dock. Another space-themed activity, the Slow Lander Aerodynamic Challenge, invited students to make a whirligig out of paper and other materials that would fall to the ground as slowly as possible. A final activity at the Space Station encouraged visitors to design a Mission Patch to represent their family’s members and interests.
At the Ye Olde Rocketry Arena, it was literally raining rockets. Seventh and Eighth graders and many others went all out, building rockets from foam, rubber bands and paper. Then they experimented with targeting their flights by adjusting the launching mechanism and angle by which they were shooting them.
In the Makerspace Lab, our youngest students showed off their BeeBot skills by using sticks as “forklifts” to collect cups. Older students gravitated to Little Bits, where they could either create street lights that lit up in the dark or electronic scoreboards that buzzed when goals were made. Students of all ages enjoyed coding activities with code.org. Our parents joined the fun by using Tinkercad to design 3D models which were then printed on our 3D printers. The activity was a great way for them to get a taste of what their students are doing here at school.
