A couple of months ago I was invited by a teaching colleague from many years ago, Lou Erbacher now Deputy Principal at a Catholic school, to run a STEM activity day in celebration of Science Week. What an honour!
This year’s theme, “Decoding the Universe: Exploring the Unknown with Nature’s Hidden Language,” set the stage for a day full of curiosity, creativity, and discovery.
The students explored Fibonacci numbers in nature and used them to build peg pinball machines. They idetified simple machines and harnessed the power of magnets to create peg magnetic cars. They decoded secret messages with cipher wheels and learned about Alan Turing and WWII codebreaking. The youngest used clay to imprint animal tracks after listening to a story—combining science with storytelling in the most magical way.
The day was busy, hands-on, and filled with fun! The children were absolutely delightful—and I even received a few hugs, which reminded me why I loved teaching for 49 years. ????
A huge thank you to all the wonderful teachers and staff who made the day run so smoothly, and especially to Lou for giving me the opportunity to visit as TinkeringChild.
Here’s to decoding the universe, one curious mind at a time!
