Project Newsletter

Kaycee Anderson
Mesquite, NV
Elementary Education
Leadership Engagement Center

The Children's Jubilee and STEAM festival

For my project I worked with the committee in charge of the Children's Jubilee and STEAM festival. I helped organized the layout of the event, specifically the arrangement of the STEAM booths. I met with members of the committee and planed out the specifics before the event. The day of I helped with any hang-ups that occurred and ushered the children to their assigned booths.  

The OSU Children’s Jubilee is an award winning event held in Cedar City. The event is geared towards exposing more children to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math). The event is well-known and there is great participation, however the committee hopes to make it even bigger and better this year. Normally, members of the committee go to various schools and promote the event. This year however, there was an event the day before the jubilee for children and educators. At the event more of the STEAM activities took place. This is where I will be helped out the most. The theme was“Aloha!” The concert that was put together was inspired by the harmonies of the Polynesian islands.  After the concert, students went around to different STEAM booths and learned about all kinds of subjects from space to rocks to theater. The activities planned will also went along with the "Aloha" theme. 

I heard about my project through the College of Science and Engineering Leadership Board that I am a part of. The adviser of the leadership board that I work with very closely volunteers with the committee each year. She told me of the event and I was immediately excited to get involved. I learned that I would be working with children, specifically introducing them to more science and engineering topics. I knew this was the ideal project for me because I am an elementary education major emphasizing in language arts. I really wanted to branch out and work with students in an environment that was not surrounded by language arts. 

The main challenge that I faced while working on this project came while dealing with the layout of the booths. We organized the booths by category for example aviation, engineering, music. etc. We then assigned each booth a number and placed them in the various locations in the event center. The challenges arose when doing this because we did not want to place two booths of the same category next to each other. The students only had to time to go to two booths and would switch with booths next to them, so we wanted them to get the opportunity to go to different types of booths. This was difficult because some booths required extra space or extra power outlets. It took time to get every booth in an appropriate place that would work for their needs and for our own.

Because of this project I was able to help the members of the committee in charge. I helped bring fresh ideas to the project. I was also able to help incorporate the university into this event as well. I invited other students to help participate and get them interested and excited about the event. This was an event I had not heard of. It does not get much publicity, especially at the college. Through this project I have been able to spread the word about this great event.

This project helped me face my fears of science and engineering. I have always been weary of science and especially now as I grow closer to becoming a teacher, I have been increasingly unsure of how to approach teaching science concepts. Through this project I was able to see just how easy it is to incorporate science and engineering into lessons. Students love science and I feel more confident being able to use science concepts in my lesson plans. I have a new excitement for the subject and am grateful for that. 

This project has opened my eyes to the joys that science and engineering can bring to students. They are fun topics that can be easily integrated into the classroom. I cannot wait to get the opportunity to  teach these concepts later.