Hardly seems possible. This year’s STEAM EXPO, on Saturday, May 4 from 8:30 from a.m.-1:30 p.m. at Olson Middle School, will be the fifth year where students from across the local area come to celebrate all things creative, imaginative, experiential and exploratory!
Some years ago the Shingle Creek Neighborhood Association (SCNA) began looking for more ways to positively support youth in the community. SCNA began first by partnering with the Patrick Henry Herobotics Team, and began supporting the diverse youth team with equipment and event fees, and in return multiple students would come to showcase their latest robotic skills, robots and team at our SCNA community events and meetings. That simple start fostered the STEAM EXPO idea as a way to help build and support the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math (STEAM) teams locally to showcase their important creative projects and positive learning towards the future.
We were fortunate to connect with Melinda Stapley, with MPS GISE/GEMS, who is a rockstar at helping coordinate the daily activities and the GISE/GEMS team project showcases. Now, nearly 300 students from Patrick Henry High, OIson Middle School, and Cityview, Davis, Pillsbury, Jenny Lind, Anderson, Loring, Folwell and Waite Park Elementary schools are bused in to experience all the buzzing, popping, steaming, launching projects from each other’s school teams — all over Olson Middle School in the halls, cafetorium, gym and parking lot — at the STEAM EXPO!
We realize it takes multiple ways to inspire! So again this year we’ll be featuring Colin Kilbane’s science in action table and show — whose sciencey slimy goop, steaming or zapping apparatus, keeps every student wondering, questioning and engaged. And the culminating highpoint of the day is a very special science show from the Bakken Science Museum to complete our STEAM EXPO! Owens Corning will help sustain everyone’s energy with donated pizza and prizes.
The event is free! Come and explore this year’s STEAM EXPO! Want to get involved? Got questions? Contact us at mpls.scna@gmail.com or SCNA Administrative Director at 612-597-9464.