Inspiring scienti c ‘curiosity and con dence’
Woodard Junior High School holds 2nd annual STEM Day
On Friday, R. Pete Woodard Junior High School held its annual STEM Day event, giving students the opportunity to gain exposure to a variety of scientific fields of study right here in Yuma.
The tradition kicked off last year, and 6th grade science teacher Vicki Peterson helped spearhead the initiative at Woodard Junior High.
“We have various groups to introduce students to things they study in our community,” she told the Yuma Sun. “There are a variety of resources in Yuma and other areas in Arizona that are willing to donate their time and materials to give students these experiences and spark an interest in a career or field of study.”
Peterson credited Amber Folkman, director of school relationships and impact for the Southern Arizona Research, Science, and Engineering Foundation (SARSEF), with bringing STEM Day to the school.
“We are hoping to inspire curiosity and confidence in young scientists’ and engineers’ abilities. Young people are already capable scientists and engineers – they may not be professionals, but if you watch any of these young scientists interact with what we have today, you’ll see them carry out all the steps of a natural investigation of scientific queries,” Folkman shared.
“With hands-on STEM activities, they’re able to see that science isn’t just necessarily being in class doing a worksheet. It’s actually how we engage with and make sense of the world,” she added.”
All in all, the event brought together groups like the Yuma Police Department, U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG), Weld Like a Girl, Kofa High School’s CTE engineering class, the University of Arizona’s College
nd of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and more.
Janett Rios, STEM outreach manager for YPG, discussed the military installation’s role in the event, which involved allowing students to operate a remote-controlled toy modeled after a combat vehicle around a track.
“YPG is here to help advocate for the students and make sure that they know about Stem-related fields, as well as what YPG’S mission is. We have engineers here on site that do this on a bigger scale – they test everything from tanks to bullets. The engineers we have here are from our Combat and Automotive Systems Division, so they run tests on tanks to make sure that they’re reliable,” Rios said. “So, they’re bringing this to show students a small-scale version of what YPG does.”