Students eager to share their latest scientific findings were plentiful at Jacksonville Country Day School’s STEM Fair, which took place on Thursday January 19th. The fair showcased many different engineering disciplines from environmental engineering to mechanical engineering and everything in between.

The fair featured booths with engineering challenges and interactive displays the students could explore. The school’s third grade class built magnetic trains while first grade students made quality play dough.

Also, fifth graders designed and built a circuit board based off of a children’s book. They built a miniature seesaw that when engaged connected the electrical current and completed the circuit causing a light to go off and a buzzer to sound.

“We learned about conductors and worked as a group to figure out the problem,” said Sue, a student, about her project.

Meanwhile, the forth grade class’ assignment had to do with aerospace engineering where they learned about atmospheres and parachutes.

Student Ella explained, “Bottle rockets were the most interesting because they’re fun to make and exciting to watch (them) launch.”

The sixth grade students worked as a team to design two working underwater submersible crafts that could go forward, backward, up, down, left, and right. They used them to pick up rings and goggles from the bottom of the pool and bring the items to the surface.

“It’s tremendous to see what each grade level puts in. They work very hard and it all culminates with this one event,” said Nancy Hockenbery, forth grade teacher.