Renee Beus likes being involved in her daughters’—fourth-grader Lucy and first-grader Clara—school. That’s why she was excited to bring the family to Silver Mesa Elementary’s recent STEAM night.

“There are a lot of cool opportunities here the school provided,” she said as the kids from age 2 to 14 tried out the Keva contraptions. “It’s really cool that the kids are getting to build this engineering activity. They’re learning skills they can provide to the world. I brought all five of my kids tonight, even my daughter who turned 10 today. She wanted to come as long as she could have ice cream afterward.”

Down the hallway, Ann Marie Louder was with her daughters, Sylvie and Rosie, figuring out the Tetris puzzle challenge.

“We do a lot of science experiments at home, like making a volcano, so we were excited to come and try the challenges here,” she said. “I appreciate my girls having the opportunity to try some engineering and seeing women in science. It’s great they see these role models.”

Hearing that is something that would likely excite Canyons School District’s Digital Teaching and Learning Specialist Chandra Martz, who created the STEAM kits for schools to use with a portion of a grant she received from the Utah STEM Action Center.

“I want as many kids as possible to be able to see STEAM in their future,” she said. “I want girls to be able to see that they can be engineers. I want children of color to see that they can get a job in the field that pays well. I feel a lot of people in some of our Canyons communities are working three jobs just to try to make ends meet. There are careers that their children can enter, and they can make $100,000 out of high school. I just want them to be able to see that this could be their future.”

In another room, parent volunteer Adam Smith, was overseeing the xylophone challenge.

“I like to lend a hand whenever schools and teachers need assistance, and interact with all the kids,” Smith said. “This is teaching students how to approach a problem with a set of instructions and apply their problem-solving skills to hopefully succeed with the instructions, but also do something fun along the way, such as learn how to play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ or ‘Jingle Bells’ or another song.”

Smith, a father of a third grader, values students learning these skills.

“They’re going to face big problems along the way and eventually, everyone’s going to have their own unique set of challenges so learning these simple examples of problem-solving will hopefully help them apply the skills on a bigger scale later in life. It also teaches them a willingness to sit down and read and to construct a solution,” he said.

That’s the goal behind STEAM night, Martz said.

In the kits that come with dozens of challenges, students learn to ask questions, analyze data, investigate and recognize similarities and patterns. They could develop and test solutions and explore learning using tools—or in many cases, try fun learning tools such as coding a robotic dog or exploring snap circuits.

“We included the activities they can do at home, so they learn STEAM is anywhere,” she said. “As long as they’re asking the right questions, STEAM can be implemented into pretty much any activity.”

Some of those questions may be “how can you break down the problem to make it easier to solve” or “what resources can you use to solve the problem.” Afterward, Martz said parents could ask students to explain what they did to solve the challenge and if the results make sense.

At each of the stations, adults were modeling that, allowing students to figure out the tasks at hand. The activities connected to academic core standards and were available in both English and Spanish, which was helpful for the dual immersion school.

Martz said these challenges are in line with the school district’s motto: “Every student who attends Canyons School District will graduate college and career ready.”

“That’s what we’re doing with STEAM, AI (artificial intelligence), technology—it’s the way of the future,” she said. “We’re giving them problem-solving skills and skills in critical thinking, so when they graduate, they are college and career ready.” λ