Students at West Hartford’s Solomon Schechter Day School participated in STEAMfest in November and December.

Submitted

Does adding a carrot to frying oil help prevent potato latkes from burning? Students tested this theory and more at Solomon Schechter Day School’s Hanukkah STEAMfest, a collaborative program that inspires learning through science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

Other student projects involved coding games about Hanukkah, creating light-up menorahs that responded to sound, programming robots to trace the paths of Hanukkah shapes, and of course, testing the science of making latkes. For more than a month leading up to Hanukkah, students brainstormed ideas, researched, created, tested, and put to use their fabulous inventions and creations which helped them celebrate Hanukkah in a number of “STEAMy” ways. Students were excited to learn about circuits, create new games, try their hand at sewing; they tripled recipes, learned new computer programs, and more.

Like any real-world design process, students began by brainstorming holiday-related ideas. They created schematic drawings, compiled materials lists, built prototypes – and then tested and revised. Our MakerSpace was an excellent location to foster collaboration and creativity with higher-level tools and supplies. All throughout, they collaborated and problem-solved.

After five weeks of preparation and collaboration, on STEAMfest day, students were excited to demonstrate what they had learned and achieved throughout the process. Parents experienced each project by playing games, observing experiments, spinning homemade dreidels, tasting latkes, and more.

The ingenuity and collaboration among the students made Schechter’s STEAMfest a fun, exciting, and celebratory day. For more information about Solomon Schechter Day School, contact Karen at [email protected] or go to www.ssds-hartford.org.

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