The Science Honor Society presents a Stem Night to local elementary school students every year; this year it was held on Mar. 7.
The members began working on their project early on in the school year and finished their project mid-March, and presented them. The projects could be anything that was related to STEM.
Science teacher and honor society advisor Mrs. Christine Jestel states that “there were about 80 kids present from North Harford Elementary and North Bend Elementary.”
Jestel states that she enjoys seeing the honor society members “show their projects to the elementary students, and having to work with the kids depending on whether they are in kindergarten or first grade, or if the kids are in fourth or fifth grade.”
Jestel also comments that the STEM night, and everything running up to the night, is run by the officers. At STEM night, along with about 40 presentations from the honor society members, the Ag department also opened the barn and aquaculture for the kids to experience as well.
Senior Anna Gibson worked with senior Anna O’Leary on their foaming monster project. Gibson states that with their project, they demonstrated “chemical reactions” and how when they mix the baking soda and other materials shows “carbon dioxide forming.”
Her favorite part of the night was “being able to show science to the kids and get them inspired for science.”
Junior Lilly Heath states that she and her partner, junior Izzy Kropkowski, made a play-doh circuit. They did this by having the “kids cut out a little piece of Play-Doh, and they stuck LED light into the Play-Doh and connected it to a nine-volt battery. They then put the positive and negative ends in, and then the light lit and they conducted electricity.”
Heath continues to say that the kids found her project “really cool and they thought it was the coolest thing ever,” and Heath thought that “seeing the little kids’ faces light up” was her favorite part of the night.
North Bend Elementary School fourth grader Teagan Szramka states that he enjoyed “being able to do the science projects.”
Senior Maddie Caiazzo worked with senior Katie Forte on their project of lemon batteries, where they “powered a little light bulb with some lemons,” states Caiazzo. She continues to state that her favorite part of the night was “seeing the kids’ reactions, because they thought the project was really cool that we turned lemons into batteries.”
Junior Justin Collins did a project on triple motion with junior Mason French. The project was on moving in circles and spinning. Collins states that they demonstrated this topic by having “kids spin in a chair and put their arms out to go faster or slower.” He continues to state that he enjoyed “watching the kids enjoying spinning in the chair.”
