The Olympia High School STEM celebration is an event that happens yearly, where students from each elementary school come to the high school to participate in different science activities that get their brains thinking in a problem-solving way. This year STEM took place the week of April 15th and included first and fifth graders from Olympia West, North, and South.
Olympia math teacher, Wendy Bowers said, “My favorite activity was the three little pigs, the first graders are so stinking cute.” The fifth graders did an activity with “Rover” where they tried to get a stuffed dog out of a bucket or “well” with limited supplies.
This year there were a lot of freshmen involved with the STEM activities. Freshman Brenna Elgin taught first and third graders. Elgin said, “I felt really prepared and I thought it went really smoothly!”
On Wednesday, third graders came to the high school to do an activity based on the Dr. Suess story “Apples on Top”. This challenged the kids to make a tower out of popsicle sticks to support an apple on top.
The next day, first graders came to participate in an activity based on the three little pigs. Each group of kids built a “house” made of toothpicks and saw how it held up against the “wind” from a fan.
There were also groups of kids, generally juniors and seniors, that taught kids about concepts like the water cycle. Junior Carson Inselman said, “it was really fun watching the younger kids get excited about knowing the answers to the questions we asked.”
Junior Ayden Winterland also helped with the teaching group. Winterland said, “Everything went good, the kids were fun to work with.” Senior Leighton Rutherford, who also helped with teaching said, “Teaching is something I am passionate about, so I’m glad I got to participate in the teaching of young kids, it was really fun.”