St. Vincent’s Students Succeed at STEAM Maker Festival
The all-girl 3rd grade team earned first place in the Cryptozoology Recycled Challenge.
Thousands of students, educators, and industry professionals came together for the Annual STEAM Maker Festival at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. STEAM, which stands for Science Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics, is the basis for a variety of educational curricula, which lets children learn and explore creatively as they develop their critical thinking skills. Students from schools across the county attended the Festival to compete in a wide array of engineering and art challenges.
St. Vincent de Paul School was well represented in the student competitions, competing with 10 teams in a wide variety of categories. Overall, the teams were amazingly successful, winning three 1st place trophies, three 2nd place trophies and one 3rd place trophy. The all-girl 3rd grade team of five won first place in the Cryptozoology Recycled Challenge, which asked students to design and create a mythical monster made of recycled items.
St. Vincent also received 1st and 2nd place awards in the Think Box Challenge, where the teams were given interesting materials and had to invent something that improved the world.
“We are very proud of our students,” said Sister Kathleen Walsh, Principle of St. Vincent’s. “This success is a direct result of much hard work, perseverance and dedication from the entire team.”
Critical skills like brainstorming, teamwork, improvising came into play for all the teams. Some of the teams had the opportunity to learn new skills in the course of the competition, like operating power tools and wire soldering. Others, learned practical lessons about physics, machines, and computer programming. Above all, the children had the opportunity to be creative and learn real life skills in non-traditional ways, which is exactly the goal of STEAM education and this Festival in particular.
Congratulations to all the St. Vincent Vikings and their Science Teacher Mr. Arnas for much success at the San Diego STEAM Maker Festival.
St. Vincent de Paul School is a Catholic, co-educational elementary school, founded in 1948 in Mission Hills neighborhood of San Diego. Accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, St. Vincent’s serves children from Preschool through Eighth Grade. For more information about the school, visit www.svscatholic.org or call 619-296-2222.
Category: Education, Events, Local News
