Trevor Thomas, vice president of business development at Emergency Plumbing, Heating & Air, helps fourth grader Nora McDonald attach a pipe during an engineering challenge for students at Schultz Elementary School’s STEAM Night Wednesday. During the activity, Thomas would give students a few minutes to place and arrange pipes to carry water poured from a bucket all the way down about 10 feet worth of pipe into a second bucket.
Glenn Battishill | The Gazette
Jake Bonnie follows the instruction booklet and helps his children, Brian (third grader) and Samara (second grader), build a circuit Wednesday during the STEAM Night at Schultz Elementary School.
Glenn Battishill | The Gazette
Plumbing, rockets, circuits and hands-on projects were just some of the features of the STEAM Night held for Schultz Elementary School families Wednesday.
The event took place at the school from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and featured more than a dozen activities related to science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics (STEAM).
Two of the event’s organizers, teaching and learning coach Mandy Mays and Schultz fifth grade teacher Kristen Wilder, said Wednesday that there were two primary goals for the event: community engagement and introducing kids to STEAM.
“It’s a community event to get families involved and coming into the schools,” Mays said. “It’s to give exposure to the kids, too, and (show them) what different things are out there and available to them so they might get interested in science, technology and math. I want them to leave with knowledge about STEM in general.”
Wilder said the event featured many community partnerships, including Ohio Wesleyan University, The Arts Castle and Emergency Plumbing to give students an idea of how many STEAM-related things there are locally.
“We wanted to do an event that brought the community into our school and show the kids lots of different STEAM opportunities within the community,” Wilder said. “The idea is that we can bring in these different community partners and show our families some of the options we have in the area. There are lots of different aspects of the community that can come in and teach our kids about STEAM stuff.”
Wilder said she hopes students enjoyed the event and saw that all the subjects in STEAM can be fun.
“I hope they can learn that science, art, math can be fun,” Wilder said. “It’s an opportunity for kids to have fun while engaging in science and math since those are ones that kids don’t always think of as fun.”
Nora McDonald, a fourth grader, worked at the Emergency Plumbing station where groups of students had to assemble a pipe to carry water poured from a bucket to a lower bucket about 10 feet away.
“It was pretty fun!” Nora said. “I learned how you need to work with pipes of different lengths. I really enjoyed it.”
Nora said she was excited for the raffles at the event and was looking forward to several other activities, including making a rocket.
Second grader Hope Gentkowski said shortly after she arrived that she was wanted to “do the activities and play around!” She added that she liked seeing her friends at the event before leaving the interview to go greet one of her schoolmates.
Hope’s mother, Eliza Gentkowski, said events like STEAM Night bring the Schultz community together.
“It was hard to find a parking spot,” Gentkowski said. “Any event that is at Schultz, it really brings the community together.”
Glenn Battishill can be reached at 740-413-0903.
