Coming out of the Covid pandemic, students were lacking experience in both their STEM learning and social skills, but in an effort to combat that, DeMello Elementary School introduced STEM Fridays.

Led by teacher Liz Voci, the program promotes communication, teamwork, patience and innovation through different STEM activities, cycling through the school on a four week rotation. And since it was first developed, it has continued to grow. 

Voci highlighted the program's community partners, including its latest activity completed with Community Boating, a New Bedford non-profit which aims to teach positive life values through boating.

On Friday, Dec. 6, students were tasked with creating two sails for a small car, testing to see which goes the farthest and learning more about the forces needed to get the forward movement necessary for motion. 

Instructing the students, Voci explained their “constant” for this experiment would be their sail’s material and they would be changing their choice in sail shape for each run.

Students had different approaches to the experiment, given their material options of plastic, paper or fabric and the freedom to choose any shape for the design — one student even pitching for one to be made in the shape of a cat.

Whitney Walsh, Aurora Conchinha and Isabel Rosinha chose to make their sails from fabric, opting for a circle and rectangle.

“We chose the circle because it looked really big and we thought we could use as much as we could,” Rosinha said. 

Similar reasoning was used for the second sail shape, with the rectangle deemed to take up the “second most space,” according to Conchinha.

The girls were hurriedly finishing up the second sail as their circle sail had gone the farthest in the class at that point. They explained they chose the fabric material because it was similar to an actual sail.

Over in another group, Leah Pimental, Elisabella Francis, Adelyn Freeman and Janae Davenport had similar thinking, making one of their sails a triangle to mimic an actual sail.

Davenport said this was the best STEM Friday because “you get to be creative.”

The group overall said they were big fans of the program.

“You’re basically practically inventing to try and make it farther, so I’d say that’s pretty fun,” Freeman said.

For their material, the group chose the plastic given that it is lighter, hypothesizing that less weight could help the car get farther. 

This rotation’s STEM champions were Briella Carter, Aria Lechan, Parker Simoes and Levi Soares, who were not with their typical group members for this activity. 

Voci highlighted the communication skills they demonstrated throughout.

“This is a really unique group of kids because we have fifth grade, second grade and first grade, so it’s the older kid role model with two really young kids,” she said. “It puts a lot of pressure on those fifth graders, but this particular crew really rises to it.”

She added another benefit to the program is helping students not only develop leadership skills in STEM, but also the wider school community. 

Nicole Williams, an education specialist with Community Boating, said, “It was great. The kids loved it. They were excited and I think that’s kind of the whole idea. We just want to get them excited about science, working together, communicating with each other, and it’s really cool to see the program that she’s made here.”

Williams added, “You can tell that the kids really do value it and work really well in that way.”