Room Nine's Math and Engineering Fair Tuesday night was an opportunity for students, teachers, parents, administrators and volunteers to showcase the projects and learning taking place in the school.
The school's STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) program has been evolving the last few years with support from a variety of grants, and support from Boeing, the Carnegie Corporation, the Future of Flight museum. The Obama Administration has been supporting programs like these because of the need for it and has granted money accordingly. Room Nine's program manager since 2008 has been Trinh Pham.
"It's an amazing program," School Board member David Wilson said. "I've felt like that for a couple years. We just have to keep it going."
Lara Grauer, a Shoreline Parent-Teacher Association co-chair, has a son in first grade and daughter in third grade at Room Nine.
"It was a good fit for us. It's all active learning. They learn by doing, I think it's more effective than learning by lecture," said Grauer, who thought Shoreline was a better district for her children than Seattle Schools. "We're excited about it for sure."
The Shorewood robotics team, Team Pronto, was on hand to demonstrate their working robots and let the students try them out.
Visitors could try their hand at experimenting with steam powered boats sparked by a candle flame and cars run by carbon dixoide, demonstrations of solar power.
Room Nine Community School has two teachers, Michael Callahan and Rebecca Drury, who are trained as Career Technical Education teachers.
Callahan teaches art and technology including ceramics. Students use real clay in projects and also have access to Sketch-Up, a 3D Modeling.
