CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics! These are the four pillars of "STEM", the word of the day in matters of education; a cozy blanket term for practical skills leading into high-tech jobs.
Getting a working knowledge of these diverse fields may sound like a tall order for even the most capable - but a group of young go-getters in Flour Bluff is proving anyone can get their head in the game when it comes to these crucial skills!
Students from military families came to Flour Bluff Intermediate this week, given a golden opportunity to flex their creative muscles free of charge. The event in question was a Camp Invention program put on by the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
A grant provided by the Department of Defense's STEM outreach (DoDSTEM), according to school liaison Joe Holder, "gave them free enrollment for the week, and these kids are coming up with all sort of ideas."
An awesome array of creative prompts were laid out for the kids. Activities at the camp included designing aquariums... for robotic fish! And planning what they'd need for a vacation... in outer space! A blend of everyday, earthbound setups with high-flying scientific concepts set the students up to let their imaginations loose, all while preparing them for the grounded side of life.
Student Rylynn Frederick told 3NEWS "I'm having a lot of fun, and I got to make a ton of inventions. I like to invent them, and I'm very artsy, as well. I like to draw, color, and paint."
The daughter of an active-duty serviceman in the Army, Frederick showed 3News personally how she combined engineering with art. The student had put together a marble run with an elaborate and colorful city backdrop she had drawn in marker, entitled "Rylynn and the Girl World"!
In a similar vein, instructor Sarah Sales stated that the most interesting thing about the program to her was "hearing the different ways that children interpret science as they're piecing things together, you get to really learn who the kids are and how they think about the world. I'm just gonna say, the future's bright!"
If inventing's your intent, then to your heart's content, from a life of boredom you can repent - all thanks to this great event.
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