Photo courtesy of Vestavia Hills City Schools.
A VHEE student launches a rocket during the VHEE Schoolwide Enrichment Festival.
Students at Vestavia Hills East became unofficial rocket scientists during their annual Schoolwide Enrichment Festival recently.
The week-long event, which was planned and led by gifted specialist Angela Hollis provided basic information related to how rockets work, rocket demonstrations within each classroom with parent volunteer help, and culminated in 43 rocket launches (one for each classroom) on the field behind the school.
When asked why she chose “Rocket Science” as this year’s theme for the annual enrichment festival at East, Hollis said, “STEM and STEAM are such hot topics and hold the kids’ interest so well. We can really pack so much learning into these areas when we incorporate something as exciting as watching an actual rocket launch! I knew the kids would truly love this experience and ‘sneaking’ physics and spatial sense in would be easy.”
One of her students wrote in his journal that he “felt like a real engineer learning about rocket science” and building his own rocket to share with the school.
The enrichment festival is made possible each year by the tremendous support of the school’s PTO and their volunteers.
Submitted by Vestavia Hills City Schools.
