MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Eastwood Elementary School students got hands-on learning about nature’s resources during their STEM Fair. 

Over several weeks, science teachers designed fun activities for all grades during “Remake Learning Days.”

In one of the activities, the students built water rockets out of soda bottles and cardboard. They each made a design, filled the bottle with any amount of water they wanted, pumped air into it and shot it off.  

The goal of the activity is for students to learn about water movement, water energy, the water cycle and the states of water and matter. 

The STEM projects tie in with Eastwood Elementary School’s motto: “grow healthy kids and a healthy world.”

“Teaching our students problem-solving skills and to think critically and to think twice about our natural resources helps them to become citizen scientists and helps them to become stewards of our environment,” said Karen Davis, an Eastwood Elementary School STEM teacher. 

This year’s event was modified for COVID-19 precautions. Usually, the STEM fair is held in the evenings where industry professionals from all fields come to teach students about their work. 

The activities were funded by a grant from Remake Learning Days. The water learning activities coincide with the opening of the school’s watershed. Funding for the new watershed was provided by the West Virginia Division of Cultural History and Natural Arts and the NASA Space Grant Consortium. 

Davis said the watershed will help the school provide lessons on water conservation and its importance. 

“Conserving water, and how our Appalachian watershed serves 80% of the eastern seaboard’s fresh water and so that’s a huge responsibility for our citizen scientists to take on, and we want them to be educated about that,” Davis said.