Today the Bowen Elementary School PTO held its 6th annual Science Day — held virtually on Zoom this year for the first time — and the collaboration among so many people was a big success in empowering students and making science accessible.
- The stars of the show: About 100 Bowen students presented 74 projects in 2-minute videos on FlipGrid before the event for the entire school community.
- The students also presented their results in live discussions with seven visiting scientists from the Journal of Emerging Investigators during several sets of half-hour sharing sessions in Zoom breakout rooms.
- Middle-school students from the Oak Hill Garden Club served as monitors for the breakout rooms.
- High-school students from the NNHS STEMentors club, formed to inspire elementary students in STEM, led parallel sessions with science games, experiments, and hands-on engineering projects.
- The Newton Ligerbots robotics team provided expertise in Zoom management.
- Principal Guzzi viewed each student’s FlipGrid presentation before the event and spoke in a brief keynote highlighting the students’ curiosity, engagement, and sharing.
- Bowen parents Diane Gomez, Melanie Hildebrandt, Larissa Gordon, and Betty Wang organized and managed the entire event and curated a helpful list of online resources.
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.