Oceana Air Show Outdoor STEM Laboratory 2023
POSTED ON: Sunday, September 17, 2023 12:00 AM by Kristine Endy
The USNA STEM Center participated in the Oceana Air Show Outdoor STEM Laboratory in Virginia Beach, VA from September 15-17, 2023. The STEM Laboratory has been sponsored by NAS Oceana since 2016 as part of their annual Air Show, and consists of developmentally appropriate, hands-on activities that engage and inspire students for career opportunities in STEM.
Debbie Patch, Oceana NAS School Liaison Officer, coordinated the STEM Laboratory and worked with Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) and Chesapeake Public Schools and to bring over 6,000 fifth-grade students to the STEM Laboratory and Airshow on the Friday before the public show. The students engaged in STEM activities in the Outdoor Laboratory while enjoying flights of various aircraft throughout the day. The culmination for the students was watching the performance of the Navy’s premiere flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels. The public portion of the event on Saturday and Sunday drew over 150,000 attendees including children of all ages.
USNA STEM Center staff, Kristine Endy and Antje Hlavaty attended the event with ENS John Trombetta and Midshipmen Chad Bo, Anna Drinkert, Deanna Eslit, Thomas Fotter, Kevin Lam, and Brian Stricklan. Additional support was provided by Office of Naval Research Reservists from across the country. Hands-on activities for students included: designing and launching straw rockets, building and testing paper airplanes to learn about flight principles, using whirligigs to learn about rotors, solving puzzles and ciphers as part of cryptography, electrical etching to make dog tags, and engineering challenges to explore fluid properties and boat stability. Students of all ages were engaged and inspired with STEM topics while having the opportunity to talk with military personnel about career paths and options. The looks of excitement and wonder on students’ faces confirmed that the hands-on applications were opening their eyes and minds to new possibilities in the STEM fields!
With the backdrop of flight shows taking place while students explored the activities set-up in flight hangars and flight line tents, it was certainly easy to see that, “The NAS Oceana Air Show is a way for us to inspire the next generation of leaders, because you never know who will walk away from that special weekend believing that they, too, can dream big and Fly Navy”.
Category: General Interest