AITE STEM festival encourages student creativity
STAMFORD — Learning can be fun. Really fun. AITE proved this with its Out of the Box Festival.
“It’s a celebration of math, music and messiness,” AITE principal Tina Rivera said about the event recently held in the school’s Cyber Café.
Math teacher Vin Urbanowski agreed, saying, “The point of this festival is that math is one of the things that makes us human. We sing, we tell stories, we make art; we build, we break and we calculate. Sometimes explicitly, as with old-school photography, and sometimes implicitly as when playing the blues, but always, always, the math is there and part of the fun.”
With the theme of making students think out-ofthe-box, an alliance of parents, teachers and students came together for the event.
AITE students hosted a variety of “houses” focusing on certain fields. For example, the House of Engineering had many fun hands-on building activities, while the House of Mystery challenged people’s problem-solving skills. The festival’s participants included more than 150 students from elementary to high school.
Contrary to stereotypes about math being boring, the festival used the subject in a way that excited and engaged students.
“We’re giving them the materials they need and the freedom they want,” said Claire Paolini, an AITE sophomore who led the House of Engineering. “They get to test out new ideas and learn hands-on.”
She tasked her group with building a contraption out of straws, string and tape that could protect an egg from cracking after being dropped 20 feet. Along with engineering, students were tasked with solving math paradoxes, designing Rube Goldberg machines, building a spaghetti-marshmallow tower, and a host of other ways to apply math to the real world.
Despite the focus on STEM, the arts were not neglected.
“There’s no formula for music,” said Spencer Rosenfeld, an AITE junior who taught aspiring musicians to play the piano. “It gives kids a chance to be independent and express themselves.”
The Houses of Music, Drama and Art gave participants opportunities to unleash their creative side through instrument les- sons, acting on stage and brush painting.
Not only did kids enjoy the diverse selection of activities, but they were given a set of tools to help build their future by thinking out-of-the-box.
“Creative problem solving is a 21st century skill. It teaches people how to think critically and come up with innovative solutions,” said Adam Mohsin, an AITE senior who hosted the House of Mystery. “That’s what kids are learning here.”
The success of Out of the Box has inspired AITE to host the festival annually. PTSO co-president Cheryl Devault said the event was “a great beginning to something even more super next year.”