About 70 students in grades five through eight from over 25 elementary and middle schools had hands-on experiences with science, technology, and engineering at Monsignor Edward Pace High School’s inaugural Spartan STEM Boot Camp on February 28.
Campers attended 1-hour workshops for engineering, coding, biology, and chemistry taught by different STEM Academy teachers from Pace.
For the Engineering workshop in Pace’s Innovation Center, the STEM Academy Engineering Program’s lead teacher Laura Lima and substitute teacher Vanessa Delgado had students build a race car with as few K’NEX parts as possible. At the end, all of the cars were raced down a slope and measured on their distance, speed, and their number of parts.
For the Coding workshop, the Emerging Computer Technologies Program’s lead teacher Hedda Falcon led campers through the Hour of Code program where students created an Angry Birds-themed game and learned programming logic and language.
Guided by the Advanced Biomedical Sciences Program’s Lead Teacher, Luis Mayo, and science teacher Stephanie Hibbard, campers in the Biology workshop mashed strawberries up within a homemade solution before mixing in isopropyl alcohol which let them see and extract white strands at the top, which were actually the strawberries’ DNA.
Led by Pace science teachers Scott Giberson and Dr. Enrique Dominguez, the Chemistry workshop had campers conducting experiments on six types of metallic elements. They tested if the element could conduct electricity and react to acids, measured its mass, volume, and density, and observed its color, luster, and magnetic properties.
Pace’s STEM Academy, along with a new Academy of Law Studies, will begin accepting new freshmen into the Academy this August for the 2015-2016 school year. For more information, visit www.pacehs.com.