Student projects displayed at expo
Students at the Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the USU campus presented their science projects at a school-sponsored fair Thursday.
Parents were invited to the STEAM Expo – science, technology, engineering, art and math – in an effort to show what their children have been working on.
“Rather than doing your typical science fair where they do a little project at home and then they bring it to school, we just thought it would be really wonderful if parents could get a sense of what we’re doing,” said Mark Wallin, a teacher at Edith Bowen.
Wallin said they collected the projects the students had worked on at school.
“Then as a way to celebrate that, we invited parents to come in and walk around with their kids,” Wallin said. “The event is really just a celebration of what kids have been doing during the cold winter months.”
The vortex cannons were some of the most popular displays at the fair. They were cylinders filled with smoke and a back made from a flexible material. When the back of the cannon is struck, it makes a drum-like sound and propels a ring of smoke into the air.
“They have had an absolute blast with it,” Wallin said. “What we’re really wanting to do is for kids to be able to see sound.”
Wallin explained the cannon as a “whoosh” of air blown through a hole.
“When it gets outside the hole it all of a sudden expands, it causes the air to roll back on itself,” Wallin said.
The hollow air travels faster than the air that peeled off the back, creating a ring behind it.
“The kids wrote music to go with it so when you pound on it you actually see the music that’s being played,” Wallin said. “They’re really a lot of fun and they’re so simple.”
Inside the school were various stations and displays, like an art wall where students had drawn pictures of ways to reduce air pollution.
“We were having bad air, so red air days,” said second grader Jeremy Giddings. “So we were coming up with answers.”
Giddings said his solution was planting more trees and walking instead of driving.
“I was super excited to see all the stuff and I’m glad that my parents were able to come,” Giddings said.
The Edith Bowen School recently got a new greenhouse where students will be able to plant and care for their own crops. In addition to learning how to grow plants, the children will be able to eat the vegetables they produce.
Wallin said two USU students who are alumni from Edith Bowen decided the school needed a greenhouse. He said there were a lot of roadblocks throughout the process, but they stuck to it.
“Finally they were able to hook up with the Student Sustainability Council and they really helped push it along,” Wallin said. “They got it pushed through and this winter, they put it together.”
Wallin said when they plant the crops, they’ll have the students on a rotating schedule so a different class gets to go out to water the greenhouse plants. The children will be able to measure the height and growth rate of the plants, along with experimenting with different fertilizers, plastic coverings and growing techniques.
Though the greenhouse will include scientific experiments, Wallin said the school places its focus on engineering.
“The difference of science and engineering is that science looks at the natural world,” Wallin said. “Engineering takes what scientists know and creates some sort of a product, so it’s a continual process of design, test, redesign, until they find a product that they’re satisfied with.”
Wallin said the school runs tests rather than experiments..
“I know that they’re the same things in a lot of ways, but science is experimentation and engineering is really design and testing,” Wallin said. “So you’re looking for a specific thing, as opposed to what it looks like when you’re done.”
– tmera.bradley@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @tmerabradley