HAW RIVER, N.C. (WGHP) — At Alexander Wilson Elementary School in Haw River, the STEAM Club likes to do things in a big way.
"This year we really decided to go bigger than we've gone before, because it's been a while since we've been able to have an event, you know, with COVID and everything," said Daniel Flack, the club advisor.
Each year the club members hold a STEAM night where their classmates can learn about all the possibilities with Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. This year they decided to have exhibits that make visitors feel like they are going around the world in sixty minutes.
"They'll get to go to all the different continents. And it's not just the amazing setups you see here," says Flack. "It's also they're getting to do a steam activity at each event so that they'll get to build an igloo that they'll get to take home and test. They'll get to build a chariot. They'll get to play mini-golf, they'll get to do art explosions. They'll get to do all of these cool, cool activities at each location that they go to."
All of it was designed and built by STEAM club members who admit, it wasn't easy.
According to fifth-grader Olivia Hatton, "It was kind of ups and downs. Like some, we had to restart the castle several times and multiple ideas didn't work, but at the same time, some of them were actually very good ideas. So, we just had to mix and match different things."
Emma Neece is also a fifth-grader and she said it was "one of the biggest projects I've done. And overall, I think a lot of them have gone really well. Um, and it's just really amazing and I'm so glad that we all pulled it off."
There's a lot to see and experience and the student have their own favorites.
Charlotte Freeze, a third-grader said she loves the castle the best because "it's really big and I love the stained glass."
"I worked on North America. We worked on the Pyramid of Cholula, Mount Rushmore, Niagara Falls and the Statue of Liberty," said Carter Rumley a fourth-grader.
Daniel Flack knows how hard his students worked on getting this project together.
"Absolutely everything from measuring something to, how did the weight distribution of things to, how do I make the stained-glass light up to what kind of angles or things for the leaning tower of PISA, do we need to have a counterweight. There are so many things, science, math, technology pieces, and definitely art pieces. We really hit all of the letters in steam, and we were working on this project."
He says this is an opportunity to take their learning to the next level and make it applicable to real life. It did influence some. Like Charlotte Freeze. She said "When I grow up, I want to be an architect. This will help a lot."
Success can come in small packages with BIG ideas.
0 Comments