On Friday November 8th, ILS students and faculty who signed up got to participate in the celebration of STEM and STEAM Day in the student learning center during F block. The objective was for students and faculty to gain more knowledge of what the STEAM program is about and what they do. 

The activities that were available included:

• live picture editing with Photoshop,
• video editing with Final Cut,
• practicing proper CPR procedures,
• calming a crying baby,
• dusting a crime scene for fingerprints,
• measuring the progress of our Growing Beyond Earth project,
• distinguishing tissue types under a microscope, building a robot,
• learning about the senior engineering design project,
• and creating a marketing plan and project pitch.

The digital arts class showed students their photoshopping skills by editing and creating different effects for a picture. Students were able to learn new CPR skills with Mr. Rydborn on a CPR child manikin and a adult manikin.

The AP Environmental Science students showcased their two month long project Growing Beyond Earth in which they are collaborating with NASA and Fairchild Garden to test edible plants that grow under specific lights that are offered to the space craft to determine which plants can grow better in those circumstances in space.

The students in the AP Environmental class explained that since there is not a lot of green light, our eyes adjust to the sensitivity of green, so when a person stares into the light in which the plants are under for thirty second and then look away everything will seem green.

In the forensic science section, students were able to participate in analyzing their fingerprint and learned about its process on finding out who the fingerprint belongs to. Then, students learned about blood spot analysis using vials with fake blood splatter to show as if it were real blood collected from a scene. 

Students learned more about the baby project, which is done by the sophomores at the end of the year. The sophomores, in partners, have to take care of a robot baby that functions like a real baby that wakes up crying in the middle of the night, needs to be fed and changed, and overall needs attention.

Students in the engineering program created what is called Roombato, which is a voice recognition wheelchair that moves wherever the person sitting in the wheelchair tells it to. They created a project called LMES which stands for limited mobility exoskeleton which is a muscle sensor that reads impulses sounds from a persons muscle every time every time he or she flexes. This is going to eventually drive a linear actuator that is going to help a person with a brachial plexus injury raise or lower his or her arm.

Engineering students created another project called AVY an automatic nail painter. Sayja is a product created and shown to students that is designed to help cook soup without leaving a mess to clean after.  

Dr. Rebecca Shaw was delighted with the turnout of STEAM Day. She hopes that by this students will get encouraged to join the STEAM clubs and elective courses available to students.

“I think it’s important to showcase all of the amazing things we do at ILS!” said Dr. Shaw.

“For the students running each station, it was an opportunity for them so share their skills and knowledge, and for the students attending, hopefully it provided them an opportunity to try something new and inspire them to get involved in a STEAM club or take one of the available elective courses,” she said. 

There were many STEAM clubs and classes involved in making STEAM day possible. Through their hard work and determination, students of ILS had the ability to learn new things and possibly join new STEAM clubs.