Students throughout Manteo Middle School had several opportunities to participate in STEM Day, which inspires kids to explore and pursue their interests in science, technology, engineering, art and math.

Manteo Middle School’s STEM team, led by Mrs. Oglseby, met and discussed the idea of going school-wide this year to celebrate. It was from this collaboration that led to the creation of an MMS STEM Day Website, which supplied teachers a place to go to browse possible STEM challenges for the day. The team hoped to lend support to teachers that have wanted to try STEM, but didn’t quite know how to get started.

Manteo Middle School has been working hard over the last two years to expose students in the building to the Engineering and Design Thinking Process. This process enables students to become the next great innovators. Students identify a problem, envision a solution, develop a plan, create and – most importantly – they improve after analyzing what went right or wrong. This goes hand in hand with the school’s push for students to develop a growth mindset.

Students in sixth grade participated in challenges involving building bridges, building towers, creating card structures and even egg drops. Sixth grade student Ellie Muglia said her “favorite activity was the egg drop. It was fun to look at all the different ideas each of the teams came up with.”

Bridges made out of tin foil were designed and constructed in seventh grade math, while scientists in seventh grade had a choice between three STEM challenges: Helping Hand (in which students were challenged to design and build a device that could grab different objects and drop them into a container); Marble Maze (where students were challenged to design and construct a maze with at least five turns and two dead-ends); or Zip Line (in which students designed and built a cable car that could carry a plush monkey from one location to another). Lots of collaboration and laughter was shared.

Eighth grade science students were challenged with creating a town that would minimize the impact of pollution on the environment while keeping in mind the health of the community. Exploratories also joined in the fun by having students study, design and create catapults using one spoon, two rubber bands and a 3-D pen Students were heard saying that they liked being challenged and working in teams to tackle a problem. One student said, “STEM Day was so fun I didn’t mind failing at the challenges.”

The MMS STEM team is already planning for next year.

– Submitted by Carrie Houseknecht

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