STEM Academy introduces grade-school girls to science, engineering

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Spaghetti noodles, gumdrops, baking soda and vinegar.

They were ingredients for recipes, but not the kind of recipes that get eaten when they’re finished. They were recipes for explosions, towers and other scientific experiments.

The Charles City STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Academy was held at the Floyd County Enrichment Center on Saturday.

About a dozen Charles City elementary girls enjoyed a hands-on day with scholars from both Iowa State University and Wartburg, who provided activities in fingerprinting, tower building, engineering design and more.

“This gives them an opportunity to come and work with other young women who are in science-related fields to get an idea of what they can do as they get older,” said Diane Sande, elementary teacher at Lincoln Elementary School. “Today’s event is for girls, but we’re always looking for ways to encourage our young people and give them opportunities.”

The event was hosted by the AAUW (American Association of University Women) and the Charles City Community School District, and sponsors were Cambrex, L&J Industries, Machine Tool Engineering, ISU Extension and Valero Renewable Fuels Co.

A group from WISE (Women In Science and Engineering) from Iowa State and Wartburg was there to help facilitate.

Sande said that for some of the students, the activities at the enrichment center on Saturday were their first introduction to the science field.

“This is the first time doing it out here,” said Sande. “Whether you’re going into science or engineering, or becoming a welder, or becoming an electrician or becoming something like that — if they don’t have this kind of exposure, they’re not going to be able to go into that.”

Students from Wartburg and Iowa State directed the activities at the five different work stations.

One simulated an oil spill and cleanup, one included the process of taking fingerprints, one station designed small boats and filled them with pennies to see how much weight they could hold and still remain buoyant.

Then there were the towers built from raw noodles and gumdrops — one of which reached over two-feet high — and the always-exciting explosions created from combining baking soda with vinegar.

“The kids are the ones guiding their own experiments,” said Sande, who added that the college students kept the grade-school students engaged. “The Wartburg students and the Iowa State students are excellent because they ask them questions. I think it’s been nice just having three in a group, because then they get lots of one-on-one attention.”

Every student was able to participate in each of the five morning workstations, then students broke for lunch. The students then participated in a large group activity in the afternoon, which was a “team-building engineering design challenge.”

Sande said that they were looking into doing another event in the spring, and there are plans to do these events on a regular basis in the future.