Plattsburgh students gather for STEM Day

May 21—PLATTSBURGH — To the excitement of many students, Plattsburgh High School's annual STEM Day event returned Friday.

At STEM Day, Plattsburgh High School students get the opportunity to teach experiments and demonstrations to groups of fifth-grade students from Oak Street Elementary School and Momot Elementary School.

FUN SIDE OF SCIENCE

The day is centered around showing younger students the fun side of science and math in order to pique their interest in the subjects as they get older.

For junior Declan Kelley, who was helping with a fire demonstration in one of the science classrooms Friday, STEM Day sparked her initial interest in the subject.

"I remember getting into the high school science (classes) because of STEM Day. Back in elementary, it was like we (learned) the states of matter over and over again but seeing it as something fun in high school made me really interested in taking them," Kelley said.

"It's pretty fun to see how much we can engage with the kids and get them into science. The kids were talking about it and they already seem really interested in taking these classes now."

CAREER PLANS

Kelley now plans on pursuing a college education in engineering.

"I've pretty much been interested in science since I could understand what it was," she said.

"I'm planning on going into engineering — it (STEM Day) definitely gave me an outlet for this underlying need that I've always had. I was always science-oriented and it showed me in elementary that I could pursue it in high school."

LUCKY PENNIES

The groups of fifth graders rotated through eight different settings for a variety of quick 4-minute science and math demonstrations.

In science teacher Sonal Patel-Dame's classroom, there were three stations for the students to engage in: a flame test station, an acid-base reaction station, and a turning copper pennies into gold station.

Patel-Dame said the penny station is usually the students' favorite.

"We give every single fifth grader a penny...most of my students who were fifth graders here, they all say they still have their penny. That helps them remember Fifth Grade STEM Day and it makes them excited to be a part of this," she said.

"We have over 123 high school students who are involved in this, which is massive. They're awesome and amazing and they've worked so hard to just make this an incredible day."

WONDER AND CURIOSITY

In physics teacher Corey Mousseau's classroom, fifth graders were introduced to more advanced demonstrations with mass distribution, balance, inertia, friction, pendulums, feather and penny experiments, and robotics — among many others.

"The whole goal of my room was to get kids wondering and being curious, but not being taught. They're not necessarily learning this stuff, they're like, 'I want to know why this is working,'" Mousseau said.

"With physics, it's an overwhelming subject matter and to try to explain it to a fifth grader may scare them and that's not my goal. I want them to be curious and wonder what's next versus getting mad because they didn't understand something."

GETTING HANDS-ON

Mousseau also helped kick-start STEM Day with fellow teachers Patel-Dame and Kate Relation.

"We were both trying to get kids at a younger age involved. In the middle and elementary school, they learn about science but don't get to do the lab side, so a lot of them are intimidated by that and when they get here they're scared," Mousseau said.

"Time and time again, we had a lot of kids who would join the more hands-on science classes their junior and senior year and they would say, 'I really wish I had gotten involved with this stuff when I was younger.'

"We're always figuring out ways to get kids involved, so the science teachers said to make this (STEM Day) into a full day and really have a fun day. The key element is the high school kids running the whole thing — it shows that turnkey. It's their chance to give back."

Email: cnewton@pressrepublican.com

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