Westfield’s Southampton Road college students have hands-on enjoyable at STEAM evening

Smith college students within the Jandon Center for Community Engagement’s Robotics Outreach Initiative lead Southampton Road Elementary college students via a diner sprint with their robots.
Reminder Publishing photograph by Amy Porter

WESTFIELD — Southampton Road Elementary School held its second STEAM (science, expertise, engineering, artwork and math) evening for third and fourth graders and their siblings, in partnership with college students and workers from the Jandon Center for Community Engagement at Smith College.

SRS STEAM instructor Jessica Hanson mentioned the varsity has been partnering for the final two years with the Jandon Center’s training initiative, which they related with via a mother or father, Nancy Ziegler, who works there. Besides the STEAM evening, they’ve benefitted from the Center’s Robotics Outreach Initiative, which organizes groups of Smith college students to create robotics workshops and courses.

The Robotics Outreach workforce ran an eight-week robotics membership for fourth graders at SRS over the previous two falls. Hanson mentioned the membership was so fashionable, she needed to maintain a lottery to pick as much as a dozen college students to take part this yr. The first yr, the robotics membership, utilizing Lego Mind Storm robots, ran them via a craze maze. This previous fall, membership contributors coded the robots to bowl a ball.

The Robotics workforce introduced their robots to STEAM evening, giving the entire college students who attended the chance to take part in a diner sprint, wherein the robots pushed “food” gadgets from one restaurant to a different.

Seamus Golen, 9, who attended STEAM evening together with his nana, Polly Carlen, mentioned he had taken half within the robotics membership. “It was really fun, we got to play and code with the robots. There were lots of fun activities,” he mentioned.

Asli Ali coordinates the Robotics Outreach. She mentioned in this system, logistics and curriculum are student-led and open to Smith college students in all disciplines. The workforce at SRS on Feb. 10 mentioned they have been learning engineering, public well being and training.

In addition to Okay-12 colleges, the Jandon Center’s neighborhood companions have included the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Holyoke, the Connecticut Science Center, the People’s Science Fair and the Girl Scouts.

The Jandon Center additionally introduced telescopes and samples from nature, which college students considered at 10- and 20-times magnification whereas staffer Hannah Gates talked about what they have been observing.

Parent Eric Babci, who works for Cartamundi in East Longmeadow, introduced the elements they use to make Hasbro’s Play-Doh, together with flour, salt, water, perfume and pigments. He talked concerning the science behind the toy, bringing a video displaying how it’s made. Babci mentioned they bring about leftover Play-Doh bits to space farms for the animals to eat.

Another mother or father taught the scholars find out how to sew cloth on giant samples, which Hanson referred to as a misplaced artwork. On Hanson’s desk, she introduced her robots and a Makey Makey exercise, wherein college students may plug right into a banana and play piano on a pc.

Kindergartener Logan Paulson was utilizing magnetic tiles to construct marble runs together with his father Charles Paulson. “Logan likes to build things. His older brother is really into it,” Paulson mentioned.

Other SRS scholar contributors have been enjoying with an enormous Connect 4 sport and drawing photos, amongst many different actions.

SRS Principal Kate Ritchie and Hanson expressed their appreciation for the Jandon Center. “They’re such great role models for young girls,” Hanson mentioned, including that SRS is fortunate to have constructed the partnership with them.