MANCHESTER – Another school year is over but among the many memories that students will cherish was an event that took flight at the Manchester Middle School.
The Engineering Team and engineering students from Ocean County came together to assemble and fly paper airplanes, bottle rockets, kites, boomerangs, and other objects.
The event featured many fun and educational activities that took place that evening inside and outside the school. Food and activities were also part of the evening event thanks to the Manchester Township Education Association.
Professor Pam Bogdan from the Ocean County College Engineering Department builds rockets with her students and is also part of a community outreach program that involves the school district.
“I am the program chair for engineering and technical studies at Ocean County College. We do this in partnership with the Civil Air Patrol. We’ve done about 10 rockets. Basically, all these rockets were manufactured by OCC engineering students,” she added.
She explained that two-liter bottles are filled with water. They pressurize it with a pump and once they release it, the bottle goes straight up in the air. “It is fun and I really like the fact that we use manual pumping so the students get a sense of how much power and energy they are putting into it, whereas if they just pushed a button they really wouldn’t get a sense to that. They really have to put some work into it.”
One MTMS student was eager to see his rocket launch as he pumped away with great vigor.
Teacher Maura Simister, who runs the STEM program at MTMS, was there to watch the students’ efforts.
“We usually do three or four events per year. I got a grant from the teachers association for a community event that brings members of the community in to see what the students are doing and learning so they can share their projects,” Simister said.
She noted one of the projects they did during this past school year “was a clean energy fair and then in the fall we had a computer science fair. We try to pick from recent topics that are going around.”
Robin Ford, a preschool student in the district, had to touch his nose as part of the safety test.
“You passed,” Professor Bogdan said, which made Robin very excited as he prepared to shoot off his bottle rocket. His grandmother brought him to the event and was urging him on as he pumped away and eventually launched his vessel into the sky.
Superintendent Diane Pedroza noted how the weather was perfect for learning with water rockets.
(STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools.
The acronym has implications for workforce development, national security concerns (as a shortage of STEM-educated citizens can reduce effectiveness in this area), and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers.
