Children can now participate in crafting paper airplanes, making paper roller coasters and even creating a water filter during STEM Sundays, led by WonderLab Museum staff at 3 p.m. on Zoom.
STEM Sundays, which were offered when the museum was open to the public, have been altered to go online amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual STEM Sundays are free, but WonderLab welcomes donations.The Zoom meeting links are available online each week.
Each week during the session, there is a different theme and an activity to go along with it. Museum educator Sarah Lynn Wells leads STEM Sundays each week on Zoom and picks the themes. The theme for this Sunday will be Earth Day, and attendees will learn how to filter water with household materials.
Wells said the virtual programming can be beneficial when leading STEM Sundays because she is able to create a lesson with background information and an activity.
“Everyone's there for an hour, whereas when we do it in the museum it's more of a drop-by thing,” Wells said.
Wells said she tries to create activities based on common materials people have in their homes.
Some of the activities have included making a paper roller coaster and paper airplanes. The activities are geared towards children K-5 and their families, but anyone younger or older is welcome to watch or participate.
Wells said they are seeing a lot of regular attendees during the program and also many new faces.
Education Director Deirdre Sheets said participating in virtual programs is a great way to connect with friends, family and new people during this time of isolation.
“It's a way for people to socially connect with people they can't see physically right now,” Sheets said.
Sheets said STEM Sundays are meant for families to do together.
“STEM Sunday is really geared toward families engaging together in the engineering design process,” Sheets said.
Sheets said STEM Sundays have not experienced a decrease in attendance because the program is easily accessible online.
“We sometimes have people from other states as well as other countries who come to our programs,” Sheets said.
Sheets said each Sunday's program is built around looking at a problem or project, figuring out how to tackle it and using trial and error to rework designs until they find something that works.
Sheets said the virtual programming is free because WonderLab sees education as a necessity.
“We see this as a community need, and we want to fill that community need,” Sheets said.
Museum Experience Director Ella Heckman said STEM Sundays are one of the longest virtual programs WonderLab is offering.
During the week, WonderLab is offering story times, science demonstrations, marine biology activities and coding classes. Each program is geared toward different age groups, and all programs except for coding and STEM Sundays are 30 minutes long. The list of times and Zoom links are available on WonderLab’s website.
“We decided to make this program longer than our other virtual programs to allow for more experimentation,” Heckman said.
Heckman said STEM Sundays are different from any other program WonderLab offers.
“It lends itself so well to family collaboration,” Heckman said. “I think that's what makes it so special.”
