The Wittenberg-Birnamwood School District has received a $1,000 STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) grant from Central Wisconsin Electric Cooperative to be used to create a workshop for middle school students about exploring electric and magnetic principles.
In order to create the workshop, Christina Priewe, physics and chemistry teacher for Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School, said that needed equipment and supplies would be purchased with the funds. The main piece of equipment to be purchased is a new Van de Graaff generator, which costs around $500.
“We have one that’s old. It doesn’t work that well,” Priewe said.
Most of the items that will be purchased with the funds will be able to be used in future school years.
While the electric and magnetic principles workshop will be geared to teach middle school students, the teaching will be done by 13 high school students enrolled in Priewe’s physics class.
“It will be a project built into their (high school science) curriculum,” Priewe said. “They’ve been mostly really excited about it. A lot of them actually do some volunteer work down in the middle school and elementary school now as well. This is something I think they are very interested in.”
For the workshop, around 40 seventh and eighth grade students from Wittenberg Elementary-Middle School will be bused to the high school to spend about a half a day at the science lab to be taught by high school students. Priewe said she is working on also doing the same for the seventh and eighth grade students attending Birnamwood Elementary-Middle School.
“This is my second year here, and I’m really excited about all of the support there is for our science department, growing that department, and the interest in science,” Priewe said. “I’m really trying to hook some interest in the younger grades, and we really focused as well on kids giving some community service back. A lot of my upper classmen really enjoy working with the younger kids, so it gives them a chance to master the concept and teach it.”
Priewe is hopeful that the workshop will allow students to “see how all the technology and everything all integrates together.”
Some of the things that will be done in the workshop include using engineering to design working models, creating unique take home pieces of art using the principles of electromagnetism, and using math to perform calculations to model the phenomena they observe.
“My goal really is to grow and promote our science here in the district to get kids interested in upper level science,” Priewe said, “and also, some networking and forming those bonds and mentorship between the older and younger students. Also, just to push creativity. Students who are creative know that there are lots of different ways to have output for that creativity.”
WBSD grant gets $1,000 grant for electric experiments
