Oak Knoll School hosts STEAM event with all kinds of hands-on projects

Last Wednesday evening (April 26th), it was STEAM on the Knoll at Oak Knoll Elementray School in Menlo Park, an event that provided hands-on science, technology, engineering, art and math projects for the whole family.

Emails Alicia Payton-Miyazaki, the Menlo Park City School District’s science and math teacher on special assignment serving as an in-house professional developer and curriculum lead:

“Inside the gym we had Rube Goldberg making contraptions, earthquake stations, and the Astronomical Society of San Mateo.  Mr. A the art teacher guided kids on how to put LEDs and batteries up and decorate with glow pens in the dark in the Starry Night activity.

“The parachutes were a flexible choice activity. There were a ton of different supplies including coffee filters, string, yarn, pipe cleaner, fabric, cups or all sized, cd cases and more. Kids and parents designed their projects together and ran out to the balcony for a test run.

“For our first run, it was amazing. We had more families than we could have imaged and the whole place was filled with kids of all ages working with their parents to build. The Oak Knoll teachers staffed the event so that the parents could be focused on spending the night engineering with their kids.”

Photos by Gina Hart (c) 2017