Glynn County Schools and many of its community partners will come together this weekend to offer students a day filled with fun and educational activities that will engage learners of all ages.
The school system will host a STEAMFest & Literacy Fair from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday at Brunswick High School.
The family-friendly event is open to all students.
Numerous organizations will be on site to offer hands-on STEAM (or science, technology, engineering, arts and math) activity booths. Each school will also set up a booth that will feature games, activities and academic resources for families.
“We will have more than 40 booth hosts that will participate in the event, including Georgia Southern University, Georgia Sea Turtle Center, Cumberland Island National Seashore, IEEE Atlanta Women in Engineering, Fort King George State Historic Site, and Children's Reading Foundation of Georgia,” said Brittany Dozier, public relations specialist for Glynn County Schools and one of the event’s organizers.
STEAM exhibits and literary booths will cater to students in grades pre-K through 12th, and activities will range from robotics and model aviation demonstrations to Colonial crafts and compressed air paper rockets.
“We want to generate a spark of passion for STEAM education while helping our students develop a lifelong love of reading,” Dozier said. “In addition to the hands-on STEAM exhibits, each school will host a literacy booth and provide students with a number of books and families with academic resources.
The Junior League of the Golden Isles will bring Peppa the Pig and Pete the Cat, along with some free books.”
Other sponsoring community partners include GP Brunswick Cellulose, the Golden Isles Development Authority, Rich’s Products, Kona Ice, Chick-fil-A Brunswick, Georgia Power, Sea Island, Fresh Start Speech Therapy and Target.
Lunch will be provided by Pizza Inn and the Brunswick Coca-Cola Bottling Company.
Georgia Southern University will bring its Science To-Go project, which offers hands-on, educational activities in physical science, life sciences, chemistry, mathematics, physics, engineering and technology through a mobile unit.
Bongang Art will provide a shell paint activity where both students and adults are encouraged to express themselves artistically while learning how science and biology help keep the oceans colorful and bright.
The BHS National Art Honor Society and Arrrt Club will teach students how to play with Chinese Tangram puzzles and show them how to create their own.
Fort King George will have an early 18th century Colonial blacksmith and wood worker on site performing tasks of the trade.
The IEEE Atlanta Women in Engineering group will talk about static electricity and perform a few demonstrations using a Van der Graaf generator. They will also discuss the electromagnetic spectrum and the various kinds of energy that it consists of, like gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet radiation, visible light, infrared radiation and radio waves.
College of Coastal Georgia will show students how to make slime using borax, polyvinyl alcohol and food coloring.
The activities are all meant to make STEAM education and reading fun for students and to get families involved in their children’s learning.
“The importance of a STEAM education is that it can help develop several vital skills that kids can use for the rest of their lives,” Dozier said. “When students are exposed to these subjects early on, they are more likely to pursue careers in these fields.
A focus on hands-on learning with real-world applications helps develop critical thinking, fosters creativity and encourages exploration and curiosity in students, she said.
“Beyond that, STEAM teaches collaboration, builds resilience and sparks interest in future careers,” Dozier said. “We know that there are so many STEAM jobs open in Georgia that are empty, and we aim to fill those gaps by helping our students develop the skills that make them more employable and ready to meet the current labor demand.”