Mildred Ave K-8

On Friday, November 22nd, we had the pleasure of hosting the Mildred Avenue K-8 School for our last field trip of the fall semester!  The Center for STEM led two experiments with 50 x 4th graders: portable levees and an earthquake simulation lab.

In the first of the two experiments, the students were asked to create a transportable and

A Manmade Levee in Ohio (The Miami Conservancy District)

reusable barrier for flood prevention across a basin using various materials such as cardboard, sand, and plastic sheets.  The students successfully brainstormed and developed effective solutions that partially protected the “people” (modeled by index cards) in the basin while student volunteers and staff poured water to simulate a flood.

Afterwards, students visited Northeastern University’s Earthquake lab to learn about how civil engineers navigate around natural disasters when designing safe buildings.  They learned about resonance frequencies, various building designs, and before using K’NEX blocks to design their own earthquake-proof structure that would survive the violent tremors of the earthquake shake table.

Finally, the volunteers led a College 101 student panel and a campus tour before saying “goodbye” to our new friends.  Thank you to all the volunteers who helped today!

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