6-17-21
“Ok, what’s 5 minus 2?”
“Umm,” she paused for a second, staring at her fingers. Suddenly, her whole face lit up as she jumped up and down, shouting, ” three!”
“Good job!” Jewel congratulated the little girl and handed her a bucket full of water. I braced myself for what was coming, but no matter how prepared I thought I was, it still made me flinch when the water splashed all over me.
The little girl giggled, yelling, “Again! Again!”
I laughed and prepared myself to be soaked once again.
We were back on the basketball court at Coburn Place, participating in our second STEM Fair. At our first STEM fair, we helped the kids build structures out of toothpicks and gumdrops to teach them engineering concepts. At this STEM fair, we helped them practice their math skills. You might be thinking that we were sitting there with flashcards and worksheets, but we had a much more exciting approach. Every time they answered a question correctly, they doused us with water.
Originally, the kids were supposed to throw water balloons at us for every correct answer, but sadly, the balloons were too thick and didn’t pop very easily. Instead, we emptied the water from the balloon into a small bucket, and then they flung the water at us.
The sun was beating down on us, so getting doused in water was refreshing. You could see the excitement and joy on the kids’ faces when they soaked us. Preoccupied with the incentive of throwing water at us, many kids actually enjoyed doing so many math problems.
These STEM Fairs have been very rewarding because we had the opportunity to interact with the people we were helping. It was a very direct way of seeing our impact on other people.
P.S. We are going to the Children’s Museum with the Coburn Place kids in July, so make sure to look out for that blog post!
