OLS students experience STREAM Day
Students at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School had S-T-R-E-A-M education for a day.
They experienced the school’s first science, technology, engineering, arts, religion and mathematics Day with a variety of activities.
For the past eight years, the school has held a Math and Science Enrichment Day involving outside presenters, various experiments and presentations. This year, in keeping with the new national science standards, OLS redesigned the day so that students could experience the application of science and math content in a real-world setting, using scientific and engineering practices.
As the eighth grade students prepared for graduation, the seventh grade led the various activities in each classroom throughout the day for the school to give them leadership experience.
The day’s events began with a choir concert before students returned to their classrooms for activities such as:
- The Three Little Pigs - houses constructed from index cards, straws and popsicle sticks to try to withstand the Big Bad Wolf's blow.
- Food Structures/Marshmallow Towers – a tower designed as tall as possible without tumbling to the ground.
- Craft Stick Catapults – catapults created to launch an item, as each group competed to see whose item would travel the farthest.
- Pom-Pom Drop Maze – an activity that taught about gravity and angles as students discovered which way their pom-pom would drop.
- Craft Stick Bridges – an activity that helped students explore design and suspension as a bridge made of clothespins, binder clips, and craft sticks were constructed to hold up the weight of textbooks.
- Straw Roller Coaster – student-designed roller coasters made with straws, tape, and modeling clay that held/carried a ping pong ball from start to finish.
- Origami – a hands-on lesson in paper folding.
- Parachute Fliers - creations designed and dropped to discover gravitational pull/air resistance with cups, string, plastic bags and army men.
- Wind Powered Cars - student-constructed sails added to toy cars and then tested for distance with air, teaching about air particles and speed.
Submitted by Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School.