Today the Bowen Elementary School PTO held its 7th annual Science Day, an event that usually takes over the school gym but for the second year was held — very successfully — on Zoom. About 100 students presented the results of their science projects, undertook engineering challenges, and conducted experiments together online in six half-hour sessions. The students’ projects are available to the Bowen community on Flipgrid for the next week.

Bowen parent Diane Gomez was part of the founding committee that created Science Day seven years ago and has recruited and developed a terrific team to carry on as her daughter moves on to middle school next year. Along with Diane, Betty Wang, David Walend, Elizabeth Stover, Janna Greene, Lena Smolensky, Michelle Manne, and Young Lim organized the event — and thanks to Melanie Hildebrandt and Larissa Gordon for facilitating today. The team has curated a helpful list of online resources.  Also contributing to today’s success were:

• LigerBots team members, who served as moderators,
• Visiting scientists from the Journal of Emerging Investigators, who attended and reviewed the students’ presentations,
• Members of the Newton North HS STEMentors club, formed to inspire elementary students in STEM, who led sessions with science games, experiments, and hands-on engineering projects, and
• Principal Guzzi, who viewed each student’s FlipGrid presentation before the event and spoke in a brief keynote highlighting the students’ curiosity, engagement, and sharing

The organizers encourage other Newton PTOs to host Science Days, and their advice:  “Start small, keep the rules loose, and don’t formally judge it. Encourage kids to be excited and curious about science and feel empowered to share that curiosity with their community. We are so proud of every single one of these students. It takes so much courage to share your work!” For more information or advice, contact scienceday@bowenpto.org.