Education Week 

Education Week - Spotlight on STEM

To celebrate Education Week 2024, the students at EVPS have had an exploration of construction, materials and design this week.

Across the school, students used aluminium foil and a small rectangle of cardboard to design a craft that would float. To test the sea-worthiness of their water craft, students then added small weights to their craft to measure how much weight their design could hold.

Taking to the air, students were invited to design and create paper planes. Wide wings, central fins, weighted nose cones and streamlined shapes - students constructed and tested a wide range of shapes and designs to see how far their paper plane could travel, or how long their paper plane could stay in the air.

The winners of the paper plane challenge are Myles, Gurdit, Thuthes.

Keeping things on the ground, students across the school explored different construction challenges in their classes. Our Prep and Year 1 students worked in teams to create the largest free-standing tower from classroom resources. Books, cushions, beanbags and soft toys all become part of these magnificent towers.

Students from Year 2 to Year 4 found themselves in sticky situations as they created their own sculptures using the unlikely materials of spaghetti and marshmallows. The delicate strands of spaghetti combined with the squishy marshmallows resulted in some truly unique designs.

The Year 5 and 6 students explored how they could build a bridge between two tables, using a limited number of icy pole sticks and a metre of masking tape. The engineering skills came to save the day, with some bridges tested with weights to test the load they could safely carry across the gap.

Students explored in a physical sense during recess and lunchtime, seeking the staff pictures hidden around the school in the STEM Scavenger Hunt. The sight of student teams giggling, helping each other and celebrating their successes was fantastic to see.

On Tuesday at lunchtime we planted cabbage, broccoli and broadbeans with the students, this year, we been successful in growing pumpkins and zucchinis.

On Friday afternoon, we welcomed families into the school to see and in some cases join in the learning, designing and creating with their children and putting the spotlight on STEM!

Steve Allen, 

on behalf of STEM team