BY CORIE LYNN
Despite the cold, local children and their families gathered outside the Sternberg Museum on Saturday for the annual Winter Show.
This event, hosted by Fort Hays State University’s STEM-Ed Club, gave its audience the opportunity to learn the science behind Christmas, all in the context of the book The Polar Express.
As Seth Boxberger, STEM-Ed Club President explained, the club is composed of students in secondary education studying the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They meet to discuss classroom standards and ways to expose students to the STEM fields.
“The STEM-Ed group runs a Christmas show annually,” he said, “I think this is the fourteenth or fifteenth year doing it, where we choose just a children’s book and read it and pick out some fun STEM ideas we can try to explain or demonstrate in a fun way that will get students engaged.”
Last year, the club chose to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas. This year, while a club member sat reading The Polar Express, Boxberger and his peers explained the train’s steam was created and how snow forms, among other scientific concepts.
This year’s Christmas Show looks different from most years.
Typically holding the storytime and experiments inside the Sternberg Museum, the club instead kept the show in the parking lot to allow for social distancing.
Families stood in front of the table of experiment materials on spots on the ground spaced six feet apart. They also had the option of attending the show in the style of a drive-in: watching from their cars while the experiments were projected on the side of the building.
“You know, honestly, I just hope they see this as trying to keep things normal,” Boxberger said.
While the STEM-Ed club wants children and their families to have fun as they embrace the connections between Christmas and science, the members believe that the event serves a greater purpose.
Boxberger explained that there has been a recent decline of students venturing into STEM fields. The fun of the Christmas Show thus serves as a simple way to expose students to the sciences and change their perspectives on the fields.
“Being able to provide [students] with just fun activities to show them [STEM is] not just doing worksheets and boring experiments,” he said, “showing them that they can have a lot of fun with it and have it be applicable to real life is really great, especially when students get interested early on.”