LANSING, Ill. (January 22, 2024) — The Lansing Christian School annual Science and STEM fair returned this year after being shut down due to the pandemic. The last fair took place in 2019.
This year’s fair featured science and technology projects by the school’s 6th graders and a few interactive projects from other grades including kindergarten, 4th, and 5th.
Students in Kindergarten through 5th grade were allowed to attend the fair.
“At Lansing Christian, we want by the time the students graduate to have done the science fair so that is why we do it in 6th grade,” said Matt Kamien, Principal at Lansing Christian School. “We also want to demonstrate and show the other kids what the students are learning in their science and technology classes.”
Twelve 6th graders competed for the chance to win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place during the fair.
STEM Education
Lansing Christian School is among many schools that have adopted STEM education to its curriculum. Short for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the program offers a unique approach to teaching and learning.
Unlike traditional education, STEM emphasizes technology and integrates subjects in ways that connect disciplines and relates them to each other.
The program focuses on collaboration, communication, research, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity to teach students skills needed to be successful in the future regardless of their chosen career path.
Lansing Christian students combined their knowledge of traditional science and STEM teachings to create projects that demonstrated science and engineering practices.
Meet the judges
The participants were required to present their projects to a panel of judges before 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners were chosen.
Kamien says he wanted to get judges who specialized in science and were familiar with Lansing Christian.
The judges consisted of Eileen DeJong (online tutoring teacher), Karen Swacker (retired science teacher), Ron Tuinstra (retired human physiology and chemistry teacher), and Darnell Brown (STEM club teacher and coordinator).
Meet the winners
1st place
- Josie Miedema for her project, “The Power of Flour”
2nd place
- Ryan De Vries for his project, “Plants and Water”
3rd place
- Jayce Boer for his project, “I Mustache: Are You Good at the Game of Memory?”
All students who participated in the fair received a certificate for their efforts.
Lansing Christian School is located at 3660 Randolph Street.
