Robinson Middle School seventh graders turn a liquid to a solid by squeezing a mixture of cornstarch and water during Tuesday, the second and last day of the STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area.
Robinson Middle School seventh grader Rowan Good, center, makes an ink fingerprint after instruction by Detective Jason Powers, right, at the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area Tuesday. The two-day event served Sevier Middle students Monday.
Robinson Middle School seventh graders participate in a panther hunt to learn about the carrying capacity of a living environment. This was part of the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day of a local chapter for a chemical engineers society.
Kingsport Police Department Detective Andy Goddard, right, shows Robinson Middle School seventh graders how to recover finger prints using powder during the day two of the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area.
Robinson Middle School students turn a liquid to a solid by touching a mixture of cornstarch and water Tuesday at the second day of the STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area.
Right, a Robinson Middle School student reacts to the cold cornstarch and water mixture at the chemical station of the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day Tuesday at the Eastman Recreation Area.
Left to right, Robinson Middle School seventh graders Kaliyah Gandy and Avery Brune at the chemistry station of the STEM Field Day Tuesday at the Eastman Recreation Area. Avery is holding a bouncy ball of a polymer she made from white glue and borax.
Robinson Middle School seventh graders turn a liquid to a solid by squeezing a mixture of cornstarch and water during Tuesday, the second and last day of the STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area.
RICK WAGNER/rwagner@sixriversmedia.com
Robinson Middle School seventh graders turn a liquid to a solid by squeezing a mixture of cornstarch and water during Tuesday, the second and last day of the STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area.
RICK WAGNER/rwagner@sixriversmedia.com
Seventh graders from Robinson Middle School take a snack break from the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area Tuesday.
RICK WAGNER/rwagner@sixriversmedia.com
Robinson Middle School seventh grader Rowan Good, center, makes an ink fingerprint after instruction by Detective Jason Powers, right, at the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area Tuesday. The two-day event served Sevier Middle students Monday.
RICK WAGNER
rwagner@sixriversmedia.com
Robinson Middle School seventh graders participate in a panther hunt to learn about the carrying capacity of a living environment. This was part of the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day of a local chapter for a chemical engineers society.
RICK WAGNER
rwagner@sixriversmedia.com
Kingsport Police Department Detective Andy Goddard, right, shows Robinson Middle School seventh graders how to recover finger prints using powder during the day two of the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area.
Robinson Middle School students turn a liquid to a solid by touching a mixture of cornstarch and water Tuesday at the second day of the STEM Field Day at the Eastman Recreation Area.
RICK WAGNER
rwagner@sixriversmedia.com
Right, a Robinson Middle School student reacts to the cold cornstarch and water mixture at the chemical station of the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day Tuesday at the Eastman Recreation Area.
RICK WAGNER
rwagner@sixriversmedia.com
Left to right, Robinson Middle School seventh graders Kaliyah Gandy and Avery Brune at the chemistry station of the STEM Field Day Tuesday at the Eastman Recreation Area. Avery is holding a bouncy ball of a polymer she made from white glue and borax.
KINGSPORT — Take more than 600 local middle schoolers on a field day.
Have them do hands-on activities ranging from virtual welding to foraging for food as pretend panthers and making rubber-like bouncy balls.
What do you have?
Mix in seven other activities plus some pizza and the venue of the Eastman Recreation Area near Bays Mountain, and you have the recipe for the Fourth Annual STEM Field Day.
Monday and Tuesday, May 5-6, seventh grade students from Sevier and Robinson middle schools in Kingsport City Schools gathered for interactive demonstrations in science, technology, engineering and math, known as STEM.
Hosted by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers East Tennessee Local Section, or AIChE ETLS for short, the fourth annual event had 10 stations: botany, structures, meteorology, evolution, fossils, panther hunt, forensics or fingerprinting, welding, chemistry and discover, the last one free play.
Amanda Allman of Eastman Chemical Co., a premium sponsor, and Tora Knollmeyer, an Eastman employee and director of the chemical engineers group,
said about 600 seventh graders from the two schools attended, Sevier on Monday and Robinson on Tuesday.
“We’ve diversified to try to get as many different STEM fields as possible,†Knollmeyer said.
PANTHER HUNT
Emily Fields of the Greater Kingsport Family YMCA oversaw students in the panther hunt.
In it, students became foraging panthers seeking 50 kilograms of meat to survive the winter in their dens, except mothers had to gather 100 kilograms, 50 for themselves and 25 for each child.
Allman and Knollmeyer said it was one of the more popular stations this year.
“We’re simulating what the carrying capacity is to an environment,†said Fields, who first saw the game at an after-school conference in Las Vegas and brought it back with her.
The activity fits into a seventh grade academic standard and uses basic math skills to calculate the total kilograms collected.
The meat, represented by disposable drink cups representing everything from squirrels to deer, was spread out in a grassed area. Students had to gather cups and take back to their dens one cup at a time. The two deer, 22 beavers, 60 rabbits, 36 porcupines and 80 squirrels was enough for 21 students if split evenly, but each group had more students than that.
As a reference, 50 kilograms is just more than 110 pounds. Also, a random student was chosen to have a leg injury and had to hop, while another had porcupine quills in the eyes and had to look straight down at all times.
Noah Morelock came in just above the minimum at 50.5 kilograms, while Lucas Peter got 54.5 and Grace Elkin 78. “I got a deer. I’ll give it (the extra) to my friends,†Grace said.
Enid West got 73.5 and Harper Price 55. Meanwhile, Kaysen Curtin only got 49.5 and Gage Crowe 45.5.
“She said that panther is on Ozempic,†Fields quoted from a Sevier student Monday who didn’t reach 50 kilograms.
FINGERPRINTING
Kingsport Police Department Detectives Andy Goddard and Jason Powers at the forensics station helped students take their fingerprints with ink, which Rowan Good did, as well as collect latent prints using a powder. Rowan said she had made ink fingerprints in sixth grade.
BOUNCY BALLS
Aaron Sams, a process engineer with Nuclear Fuel Services, and Eastman Chemical mechanical engineer Steve Bradford guided students through another station where they could create “bouncy balls†with white school glue and borax, creating a polymer.
They also could put their hands in a mix of cornstarch and water that was liquid until they touched is and it turned into almost a solid.
“I thought it was really cool,†student Maelin Stewart said, although Kalihah Gandy and Averty Bruner weren’t as convinced.
Kaliyah said it was cold and Avery said: “It’s kind of fun. It’s cold and is interesting.â€
WELDING
“I’ve near done this before,†student Bentley Caldwell said after taking a turn at a virtual welding station.
Jim Waley and Rick Hall, lab instructors from Northeast State Community College’s RCAM or Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing in downtown Kingsport, let students take a try at virtual welding used to train students before they try real welding.
“You spend time here learning that concept,†Waley said, “before you start putting welding rods in their hands.â€
