Members of the UTC Rocket Mocs team meet with STEAMagination Festival attendees.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Challenger STEM Learning Center hosted its third annual STEAMagination Festival on Saturday, Oct. 11, showcasing what the center has to offer to the local community.
The festival included activities and games for elementary and middle school students related to science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics—known as STEAM.
Rob Lein, exploration specialist at the UTC Challenger STEM Learning Center, said the event provided an opportunity for learners of all ages to attend a family-friendly event.
“It provides a place where the community can come in, see the Challenger Center and engage in fun activities,” he said. “The learners love it. They do a bunch of stuff. There’s a bunch of swag, but it’s cool for parents; it helps them learn activities that they can engage in with their learners.”
Partnered with local stakeholders, the festival highlighted many of Chattanooga’s STEAM-based organizations, including Tennessee Valley Robotics, the Arts-Based Collaborative, UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science, UTC Rocket Mocs, UTC College of Health, Education and Professional Studies, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Chattanooga Fire Department, UTC Clarence T. Jones Observatory, and Barnard Astronomical Society.
“We want to bring them together to a central place and we feel that the Challenger Center is uniquely positioned to do that,” Lein said. “We’re near a lot of schools that we partner with in this downtown neighborhood, which I feel really appreciates the extra opportunity for engagement in STEM and community activities.”
Partners like the Chattanooga Fire Department brought a fire truck, TVA provided stationary bikes to demonstrate how power is created, and Tennessee Valley Robotics used remote control robots.
Bill Floyd, resident space educator for the Challenger STEM Learning Center, guides visitors through a simulated mission.
Along with the center’s classic flight simulator, which takes participants on missions through space looking for evidence of water, the University was well represented at the festival.
The director of the Clarence T. Jones Observatory, Steven Kline, presented a poster about the observatory and what can be seen in the night sky.
One of the busiest tables belonged to the UTC Rocket Mocs, who displayed their past competition rockets. Students were able to ask questions about the design process and how they get the rocket to fly.
Diego Garcia, a senior mechanical engineering student and Rocket Mocs member, recalled that he didn’t know what he wanted to do until his first engineering class at UTC.
The Chattanooga native said opportunities like the STEAMagination Festival provide an earlier entry point for students interested in STEAM.
“There are a lot of young kids who see rockets and think, ‘Oh, cool, blast off into space. That’s super neat,’” Garcia said. “STEAMagination being here in the Challenger Center, where a lot of it is about astronauts, could help them understand a lot of the different components of it. How does it work? It may start to get them into: ‘How can I do this myself?’”
Garcia went on to explain that science is all around in everyday life. He used examples of screwing in light bulbs or changing a car’s oil.
“You realize that a lot of the stuff in our daily lives happened because somebody thought, ‘How can I make this better? How can I make this in general?’ You’re like, wow, that is a pretty cool job to have,” he said.
Dr. Julie Spino, Hamilton County lead teacher at the Challenger Center, explained that these are learning outcomes the center hopes students take home.
“We hope that students see that they can do science as part of their everyday life,” she said. “Science is everywhere around them, and it doesn’t require high technology or high needs to allow science to happen.
“Science can happen with everyday materials that are all around your house that are easy to do. Sometimes, using a material in a novel way helps you think outside the box and learn how to be an engineer and think like a scientist.”
Lein hopes families enjoyed learning at the Challenger Center and parents got just as much out of the festival as their students.
“A lot of times, as adults, we take on the sort of teacher persona,” Lein said. “We’re telling kids what to do, and the best way to get kids engaged in learning is to do it with them and model those practices.”
Learn more
Challenger STEM Learning Center – Overview
Challenger STEM Learning Center – Programming
