Over 400 attendees visited the U. City STEAM expo held at Brittany Woods Middle School the evening of Nov. 15. Forty organizations prepared booths exhibiting various specialities and skills, such as game design, elementary school engineering clubs, and environmental topics. 

“In simplest terms, the event provides a public, community place to showcase some of the authentic STEAM experiences that are happening throughout the district from PreK-12th grade both in the classroom and through our community partnerships,” Beverly Velloff, math and science curriculum and instruction director and event organizer, said.

This was the 5th year of the STEAM expo, but the first time since 2019 the event was held in person. The expo was organized by Velloff, the operations department, curriculum and instruction, and the communications department. The event also changed from STEM to STEAM last year. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. Adding the element of art gives creativity and artistic creation more credence and appreciation.

“This event provides an opportunity to bring people together and empower all to see themselves as ‘STEAM capable,’” Velloff said. “Creating a community of critical thinkers, problem solvers and overall positive growth mindset.

Sherry Wibben, science teacher, had a booth at the STEAM expo. 

“I had the PLTW [Project Lead the Way] booth that showcased student work in PBS and HBS,” Wibben said. “All I did at the fair was bring materials; my students did the rest of the work.” 

Lucy Rhoades, senior, takes a human body systems class and was able to help with the exhibit.   

“I’m in the human body systems class where we learn about the brain and different parts of it,” Rhoades said. “We brought a lamb brain. We also had diagrams of all the parts and explained them to people who visited our booth. Some even put on gloves to touch the brain. We wanted to try and bring science to life.”

Andrew Holahan helped with the robotics booth at the STEAM expo.

“We brought our robot from our lab and drove it around,” Holahan said. “We also told a bunch of kids some of the stuff we use for the engineering design process to come up with our robot design.”

Even when there were technical issues with the robot, the team was able to workshop it on the spot. 

“We had a robot that made a ball into the basketball hoop,” Joshua Grove, freshman, said. “We had to try and line up the robot by eye, because the camera on the robot wasn’t working at the time, which was tough but we got it to work eventually.”

Colonel Robert Jakcsy, J-ROTC teacher, had a booth to introduce kids to drones at U. City.

“I thought participation went really well this year; there were plenty of attendees,” Jakcsy said. “I really enjoyed watching cadet Deshun Keys instructing the young students on how to properly fly a drone. It was awesome to watch him share his knowledge.”