STEAMing Through Coal Country

STEAMing Through Coal Country

by Brittany Phillips

On May 1st, Carmichaels Area School District hosted an interactive student showcase called, “STEAMing Through Coal Country.” This community event was part of “Remake Learning Days” that is currently going on in Southwestern PA from May 9-19.

Remake Learning launched their Remake Learning Days in 2016 to increase awareness and access to hands-on, engaging, and equitable learning experiences for children and their families. Their reach includes Pittsburgh, West Virginia, and beyond. Remake Learning Days are the region’s largest open house of these type of activities, involving hundreds of organizations during the month of May.

Carmichaels’s teacher Brittany Phillips and fellow employee Sara Perkins were awarded a grant through the Remake Learning network to host an event in Greene County that’s purpose was to invite the community to the future of learning. They wanted to showcase all of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) activities that teachers are currently using in the district in the program; they gave it a coal theme, what Carmichaels is known for, and tied it all together. The coal-inspired activities included drawing and bowling with Finch robots, using HP Reveal on old mining books, mining for chocolate chips with Mrs. Megan Patton, designing train t-shirts with the vinyl cutter and heat press, coal art, Minecraft coding, using the green screen to take old, coal mining photos and insert yourself in them, and liquid nitrogen presentations by Carmichaels teacher Mr. Ken Perkins. Middle and high school students showed guests how to operate each station and try hands-on for themselves.

Included in the event were vendors, companies, and businesses from the community that are either involved in Greene County or in the coal industry, including scholarship and employment opportunities and historical coal mining artifacts that they brought. Phillips and Perkins would like to thank everyone that helped and came out to support the event, including teaching staff, the maintenance crew, and administration, but especially the students who volunteered their time. The future of coal country is in their hands!