This year, the Science Spectacular will return on Saturday, May 9th, at the Hillsdale Campus. The event will last all day and will aim to engage lower school students in the fun side of science through exhibits and activities run by older students and faculty. At the event, there will also be food trucks and family fun. In previous years, the event was put on for lower school students and served as a way to bring attention to the Doherty campus. Then, when the new middle school was first built, the event moved there to help show the new building off. The event is run by Mr. Revell, the 8th-grade science teacher at Seven Hills’s Hillsdale campus, with some help from middle school volunteers in the past. After a few years of having both Arts Alive and the Science Spectacular in the same year, the school has decided to switch events every year to take pressure off faculty, students, and parents.
To keep the whole school involved, the event will also be running in the upper school, and high schoolers will be able to help out. Still, the event’s main audience will be tailored to younger grades. Mr. Revell shared that “what is a little different about the event is that we now have some upper schoolers who are designing stations and activities for the lower school kids.” In years past, Mr. Revell has solely designed all the exhibits, so this will be another change. For example, junior Maya Little is planning an exhibit where little kids build their own stethoscopes and then use them to observe how their heart rate changes before and after jumping jacks. Other upper school students will also have the opportunity to volunteer at the event.
While Arts Alive is tailored more towards kids with artistic hobbies such as playing an instrument, drawing, or theater, Science Spectacular will allow students who are more passionate about science study and STEM to display their inventiveness. Although art will not be the main focus, creativity will still play a big role. Mr. Revell said, “The beauty of science is often taking an idea and finding a creative way to engage with it. Moreover, in this event, it is taking an upper school concept and reframing it in a way that makes it accessible to a lower school student.” Finding ways to explain science to little kids introduces them to science in a fun way and keeps the spirit of creativity alive.
The Science Spectacular’s main purpose this year will be to give lower school students and parents a view of middle school and upper school. Mr. Revell said, “Lower school parents will be looking ahead to what their kid is gonna be in middle school and upper school, and so older students running the stations will be like mirrors for them.”
Another change for this year is that the event will be introducing more biology and earth science concepts, when in past years it has mostly just been exhibits about chemistry and physics. Mr. Revell is planning to have a medical room, with upper-schoolers showing some of their challenge products that have to do with medicine. Another exhibit will explain the science behind food and calories. Overall, Science Spectacular this year will encourage little kids to think about science in a fun way, and will serve a new form of creativity than Arts Alive.
