St. Scholastica School hosts STEM night

St. Scholastica School held its first Family STEM Night on Wednesday, May 8.

Family STEM Night is a no-cost community event. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is a great way to engage all learners in experimentation, teamwork, and application of knowledge, among other skills. The evening brings families together to work on four STEM challenges which are organized into stations.

After checking in at the event, students were welcome to explore Smart Grid activities in the gym. The Smart Grids were brought to St. Scholastica School by middle school science teacher, Mark Hodges. The Smart Grid program offers schools and their students the opportunity to learn about Smart Grid technology integrated into the Next Generation Science Standards. Students at the event found the Smart Grid a fun way to have hands-on experiences learning about electricity.

Once families were organized, they moved in groups through each of four stations. Each youth in attendance was given a bag at each station which provided an activity sheet, materials, and other tools needed to complete the challenge given. Adults could either challenge their child to a friendly competition or work as a family to complete each challenge within a 20-minute time frame.

STEM Challenges included:

• Paper Tower Challenge - How tall a building can you make using ten pieces of paper and twenty-four inches of tape? This is a challenge not only of construction but of limited materials as well. While some students tore tape into very small pieces, others strategized to tear the tape horizontally to get a total of forty-eight inches of narrower tape. As students worked, they adjusted their designs for better results. Paper towers neared three feet!

• Foil Boats Challenge - This boat building challenge asks student to fashion a boat out of foil. Then, they test to make sure the boat will float. Students add pennies to see how many their boat design can hold without sinking. There is time to make improvements and retest to get a better coin count before the boat sinks. One boat held 200 pennies!

• Bungee Jump Challenge - Students design a bungee jump for a doll! The challenge includes working out the perfect amount of rubber bands to help the doll take a three foot jump without the doll hitting its head! Additionally, some type of harness must be fashioned for the doll. Depending on their results, students may need to add or remove bands.

• Pipe Cleaner Challenge - The pipe cleaner challenge asks students to build the tallest tower using only fifteen pipe cleaners and ten straws. Students answer to limited materials was to cut the straws to create smaller joints. As they worked through the challenge, families were quick to figure out that the base of the structure was going to need attention if they were going to go vertical! The highest towers neared twenty-four inches!

The family night welcomed all family members, even preschool siblings.

Middle school science teacher Mark Hodges noted, "The Family STEM night was a great event for the school families to come and share in STEM challenges and participate in the ComED and Illinois State University Smart Grid Program. The students had hands-on inquiry based experiences where they were able to learn about new technologies and discover how electricity came to be."

St. Scholastica School principal Liz Driscoll noted, "Family events bring our community together. The STEM challenges families engaged in also grow students who are problem solvers and have a growth mindset."

St. Scholastica School's Family STEM night is the final of three family events hosted by the school during the 2018-19 school year. Other events this year included Family Reading Night and Family Game Night, held earlier this school year.

St. Scholastica School enrolls students from kindergarten through eighth grade from 14 communities in the Woodridge area. The school fosters Gospel values, academic excellence, and a servant's heart. For more information about St. Scholastica School, visit www.stscholasticawoodridge.org.