Two STEM Festivals Inspire and Excite Children

October was full of festivals that were designed to show kids how fun science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) can really be. The Space Foundation manned an activity booth at the Cool Science Carnival Day on Oct. 13 and then hosted our own annual Festival of Science on Oct. 16.

Cool Science Carnival Day

Children at the Cool Science Carnival Day on Oct. 13 had fun and experienced STEM hands-on. The event was free to the public and held on the campus of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

The Space Foundation activity booth offered three hands-on activities for kids to choose from:

• Big Dipper Star Clock – children made a star clock to explore the relationship between the Big Dipper constellation and time
• Solar Flares – children viewed solar flares through a variety of telescopes
• Star Cycle Bookmark – children created a bookmark that shows the lifecycle of a star

The Space Foundation was one of over 80 local companies, schools, clubs, nonprofits, government agencies, museums and other organizations offering hands-on science activity stations for kids of all ages. The event was sponsored by Cool Science and was the kickoff event for the 2012 Colorado Springs Cool Science Festival, a week-long event that continued through Oct. 21.

The activities offered at the Cool Science Carnival Day are part of the Space Foundation’s complete education programs. For more information about these programs, click here.

Festival of Science

The Space Foundation hosted our third annual Festival of Science on Oct. 16 at the Space Foundation Discovery Institute, located on the campus of the Jack Swigert Aerospace Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The event was held in conjunction with the Swigert Academy’s monthly family curriculum night and featured hands-on science exhibits and demonstrations from a variety of community organizations.

Elementary and middle school students and their families had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a Madagascar hissing cockroach, build a model rocket, play basketball with a life-size robot and assemble electronic snap circuits to launch a flying disk high into the air. The Space Foundation’s Mars Yard and Robotics Lab was also open for students to experience STEM first-hand by programming robotic rovers to navigate the simulated Martian terrain.

Exhibitors

• Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
• Colorado Springs Rocket Society
• Cool Science
• Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center (pictured, above)
• Estes Rockets
• Imagination Celebration
• National Weather Service – Pueblo
• Rocky Mountain Robotics
• Shades of Blue (pictured, right)
• UCCS-STEM
• USAFA-STEM
• We Want Our Future

To see a photo gallery of the event, click here.

This article is part of Space Watch: November 2012 (Volume: 11, Issue: 11).