Contributed Photos
Above, Greenfield Community Science Workshop Program Coordinator Jose Sanchez (right) helps youth with their propelled-powered car. Below, local youth and their families play with “scribbling bots,” motorized contraptions that move in unusual ways and leave a mark as they trace their path, during STEAM Night.
GREENFIELD — Mary Chapa Academy recently partnered with Greenfield Community Science Workshop to bring a little “STEAM” to its monthly Family Art Nights for local students and their parents.
Through a grant from Turnaround Arts, the elementary school focuses on integrating art through such content areas as science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, collectively known as STEAM, and hosts a night of family activities each month in the school’s cafeteria.
Last month the Science Workshop was invited to introduce science to the families.
A total of 51 families, or about 120 individuals, participated in the STEAM Night event Feb. 15, along with 15 Mary Chapa teachers who volunteered to help out.
“Given the high turnout, it would have been impossible to carry out a successful event without the help of these educators,” said Jose Sanchez, program coordinator for Greenfield Community Science Workshop. “We appreciate their participation and the commitment to the education of Greenfield youth and families.”
The Science Workshop prepared eight fun-filled projects for the participants to make, including kaleidoscopes and spectroscopes, wearable necklaces and bracelets made from LEDs and coin-cell batteries, propelled-powered cars that move by way of wind, and levitating objects with the help of magnets.
“When choosing the projects, we paid particular attention to projects that are highly customizable, or personalized, and can be tinkered with in many different ways so as to allow participants to create personally meaningful creations, not just gadgets,” Sanchez explained.
He said art can be an open-ended process of investigation, speculation, imagination and experimentation, and the results of artistic inquiry can have infinite possibilities.
“Artists — just like makers or engineers — have the freedom and potential to invent and rethink their surroundings in every piece of work,” Sanchez added. “This is why it makes so much sense for us here at the Greenfield Community Science Workshop to participate in events, like the STEAM Night at Mary Chapa, that acknowledge and encourage youth and their families to take a hybrid approach to learning, one that embraces all disciplines.”
According to Mary Chapa Academy and the Greenfield Union School District, the partnership with Sanchez and the Science Workshop is essential to furthering STEAM education for local students.
“Our families were thrilled to participate in eight fun-filled STEAM activities that challenged critical thinking, along with fostering a love for STEAM activities, knowledge about art integration at Mary Chapa and quality family time,” the school stated.
