Calhoun Elementary students get creative during STEM Day
KCaulder@CalhounTimes.com
For visitors walking the halls at Calhoun Elementary and Primary schools on Monday, the day may have looked like any other — unless they peeked inside any of the classrooms.
Students sat in groups on the floor and at tables, using the extra space to turn cardboard, play dough, paint, tape and other around-the-classroom tools into arcade games, gingerbread houses and simple machines as part of STEM Day. Nearly 1,800 students at the two schools took part in the event, a themed day when they were encouraged to bring their knowledge of science, technology, engineering and math to life through creativity and problem-solving.
“They worked on those gingerbread houses all day. They’re so creative, and
STEM,
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they loved doing it. I had to ask them several times if they wanted to go to recess. They didn’t want to quit doing it,” said teacher Amy Wright.
All grades were working on different projects as assigned to them by the schools’ STEM committee. The committee is made up of eight teachers, co-chaired by Wright and fourth-grade teacher Jennifer Holley, and features a representative from each grade level. The grade-level representative came up with the activity that students in their specific grade would work on based on state standards.
“I came up with the project for first grade, for example. So, we order supplies and give teachers what they need and ask for donations of things like cardboard, but each class has the freedom to tweak the project or activity a little bit based on where the kids want to go with it,” Wright said. “Whenever they get the opportunity to create things, I’ve found that’s their favorite part.”
She’s not wrong. First grade student Gigi Ortiz said making her cardboard gingerbread house was one of her favorite activities of the year. Wyatt Pierce, another student in Wright’s class, said he loved STEM Day.
“I made a cardboard tank instead of a gingerbread house,” Pierce said. “I was allowed because it’s still a machine. I made it so the front moves in and out, kind of like the front of a real tank.”
All fourth grade classes worked together to make an arcade full of different games made from cardboard boxes, paint, cups and other every day items. Holley’s class alone had everything from a classic skee ball game to makeshift whack-a-mole and “impossible
soccer,” a game similar to foosball that features far more obstacles.
“This kind of project gets the kids to use their problem solving skills, patience and motor skills, and it teaches them to keep trying when a plan or idea they have doesn’t work on the very first try,” Holley said. “I have my students using the scientific method, so they have this question of what game do they want to make and how can it be made using the materials we have, and they have to figure that out on their own, trying different methods and writing a little paragraph or couple of sentences about why each thing they tried worked or didn’t work.”
Holley said she thought teaching students to think about problems as having multiple potential answers that should all be explored teaches them to think outside of the box.
“STEM Day is about getting the kids used to solving problems in creative ways,” she said. “Those are skills they will use every day.”