Channing Hall fourth-grader Avalynn Cooke was able to make a paper turbine and have it create 1.13 volts. Her second-grade brother, Evander, took his turn as his mother, Stacy, watched.

“The kids love experimenting and learning new things,” Stacy Cooke said. “It’s great having STEM in school because it’s our future. Our kids are going to become builders, creators, innovators.”

Avalynn chimed in: “Plus, it’s fun. You get to learn things like, how to make green fire.”

That was an experiment she did in her elementary STEM class with teacher Takota Pelch. This was a night with multiple stations, each targeted for students to learn skills, many with items found at home.

Down the hall, Pelch, who also is a middle school math lab teacher, was overseeing a couple experiments.

“We want to give students and families a cool way to play with the STEM concepts together,” he said. “For example, here we’re exploring different states of matter, so we have three different stations where they can interact with different objects that have interesting presentations in terms of states of matter.” 

Pelch was standing nearby some volunteers making root beer floats.

“Root beer floats are one of the easiest examples of things they have at home that has solids, liquids and gasses all in the same container. Root beer is a liquid, carbonation is a gas, and ice cream is a solid, and it’s fun since they get to eat it,” he said. 

Students also liked learning about the dry ice sublimating.

“Dry ice doesn’t turn into a liquid. It goes straight from a solid to a gas. We are creating bubbles with the dry ice, and with their gloves on, they can play with the bubbles. They not only get an idea of how dry ice works, watching it turn into gas, but also they can play around with the gas in a physical way and see how it’s heavier than air, and get a hands-on intuitive understanding of what it is physically,” Pelch said. 

Nearby kindergartner River was there with 21-month-old Ashton and parents, Daniel Cope and Gaby Chimal. River had plunged her hands in oobleck, a substance created with cornstarch and water.

“It’s a solid and a liquid at the same time,” River said. “The best part of it is sinking your hands in it.”

Pelch said he explains oobleck as “when it’s put under pressure, it acts like a solid. It doesn’t let you pass through it. But when it’s not under pressure, it acts like a liquid. So, if you touch it slowly and put very small amounts of pressure on it, it will let your hand pass through just like a liquid. But if you hit it super fast, it acts like a solid. It doesn’t splash when I punch it. Trying it different ways is the most powerful way they can learn. What’s neat is by experimenting with each experiment, they understand the difference between the three.”

Pelch is the one who recently taught them about chemical reaction where Avalynn learned how to make green fire during a lab.

“That was a big hit,” he said. “We’ve worked in small groups using the engineering process designing paper airplanes. They learned that maybe their original design didn’t work, so then they create a second design to see if it’s better. Each time, we do it over again to get better.”

The STEM night coincided with the opening of the new STEM lab, which the Draper mayor and city councilmembers were invited for the unveiling.

Pelch is looking forward to using the lab’s large butcher block square tables for small group projects.

“Small groups is important to channel their vision,” he said. “We got some Edison programmable robots with light and distance sensors; we’re getting new 3D printers so we’ll have six. In my 90-minute math lab class, we’ll work on innovative math for the first 60 minutes, then we’ll spend 30 minutes on STEM projects. Right now, we’re building little dragsters. You put a CO2 canister in the back, so when you puncture it, it rockets down the floor 60 miles an hour. They designed them, next we’re going to 3D print the cars then we’ll race them down the hall.”

Head of School Diane Wirth said the idea of the STEM lab is “to make future innovators today.”

Originally on the ground floor, it was moved to an upstairs classroom and expanded to include more sophisticated supplies and equipment.

“We raised about $35,000 so far toward the STEM lab; our goal is about $55,000,” she said, adding the school also received a STEM Innovation Grant from the Utah Charter Schools Association. “A lot of grant money and a lot of donors helped us bring this vision to life, and we’re not done. It’s just starting. We designed this to make it more hands on and to be more accessible to all students. Then, we put smart panels in the classroom.”

Those are one of her favorite things. The clear projection boards allows a teacher to sit behind it and show images. It then is projected for the kids.

“A lot of schools traditionally teach at the board, like you have the problem written, but the kids are not engaged. With this, you can pull up anything you need. The kids are looking right at this with you, and the teacher can watch the kids grasp the concept. It’s amazing,” Wirth said.

The lab also has mobile STEM lab which was donated.

“That’s great because STEM happens in every classroom; it’s a part of everyday learning,” she said. “I love the hands-on learning. This is a better way versus 20 years ago when you watched or read about an experiment. There is a world of difference. I love the kids are exploring and when something new is coming out, I want our school to be the cutting edge. We’re not afraid to jump into technology and discover what’s out there.”

Amongst the activities in the lab will be a building and programming space for the school’s FIRST robotics LEGO team and a news studio where fifth through eighth graders can broadcast and record school announcements and news.

Next door, River and her family moved on to examining chemical reactions by making elephant toothpaste. Wirth joined her.

River’s dad, Daniel, said they appreciated the STEM night.

“We got to spend time together doing some activities we haven’t done before,” he said. “We do STEM at home, so seeing the STEM lab and doing all the science stations is fun.”

Pelch said that was the goal of the evening.

“We wanted a night to give students and families a cool way to explore STEM concepts together and get some good hands-on intuitive understanding. A lot of kids don’t get to play enough with these concepts, and being able to do that can help them form their own intuitive understandings of the way the world works,” he said. “The goal is to give them a big playground where they can get their hands on STEM concepts.”