Watertown schools ready to explore STEM Week

First statewide event will feature panels, activities, field trips, and activities in all five Watertown schools

Gleb Partensky, Raider Times staff
October 21, 2018

It is common knowledge that In our times STEM fields are growing increasingly prominent. Enter STEM Week, a statewide event announced by Governor Charlie Baker and his administration to “create more opportunities for more students to pursue STEM fields.”

The first STEM Week — celebrating all things science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — will last from Oct 22-26 and all Massachusetts districts are encouraged to plan activities. Watertown in particular, is very fortunate to have Laura Alderson Rotondo and Elizabeth Lloyd as the two organizers for STEM week and they have a wide range of events planned.

“I think that STEM Week is important for students to experience career paths and develop interests,” said Ms. Rotondo.

Explaining the prominence of STEM, Ms. Lloyd, the Fab Lab coordinator, said, “STEM is our world and our future.”

Here are some of the highlights of the events planned for this week:

  • Three STEM career panels at Watertown High School: Wednesday, Oct. 24 (9-10 a.m., moderated by Bruce Gellerman), Wednesday, Oct. 24 (10:35-11:35 a.m.), and Friday, Oct. 26 (1-2 p.m.);
  • Project Lead the Way engineering students from WHS will facilitate a STEM activity with the entire seventh grade at Watertown Middle School on Friday, Oct. 26;
  • WHS business students will be taking a field trip to Pulpdent, a Watertown family-owned and -operated dental research and manufacturing company established in 1947;
  • In-classroom Skype opportunities with Peter Girguis (Harvard Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology), Dava Newman (Aerospace biomedical engineer and space suit designer), Sarah Parcak (Egyptologist), Alan Stern (principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons Pluto Mission), and Rainer Weiss (Nobel prize-winning physicist);
  • WMS Tech Ed students will facilitate a STEM challenge activity with the entire fifth grade (from the Hosmer, Lowell, and Cunniff elementary schools);
  • Libraries in all five Watertown schools will highlight STEM careers.

–Oct. 21, 2018–