Jeff Clemetson | Editor
Five years ago, engineering teachers at Patrick Henry High School (PHHS) came up with a plan to host an event that would bring elementary school students to the Henry campus and interact with their high school counterparts participating in STEMM activities.
That first year, the event was held in the quad area at Patrick Henry and was “very minimal” with only two local elementary schools participating, said PHHS Engineering Academy lead teacher Adria Van Loan-Polselli.
Students testing the soundness of their structure with a heavy text book (Courtesy PHHS)
When Van Loan-Polselli took over the engineering department, she kept the program going the same way for two years, engaging in STEMM activities she found online and hosting a small handful of schools in the quad. But as more and more area schools embraced a STEMM-focused curriculum, the STEMM Day event blossomed.
“So, one of the biggest feedback and reflection that we got from the fifth-grade teachers was to step it up a notch, include some of the robotics and just basically grow it and make it bigger,” Van Loan-Polselli said.
Last year, STEMM Day moved venues to the Patrick Henry amphitheater where all the different Henry cluster school students could be together. Also, the schools invited expanded to include charter schools as well as Catholic School St. Therese Academy.
“We really want the kids to get to know each other from the different schools before they go to middle school and before they come to high school together,” Van Loan-Polselli said.
