Stem On The Hill

By Noah Sharpe, Tarrell Shoemaker and Marvin Moore

FNN Chamberlain Bureau: Summer 2014. Students at Friendship Public Charter Schools are learning about STEM this Summer. Did you know STEM is everywhere on Capitol Hill? FNN Chamberlain picked out a few fun STEM places in our community to explore this summer including museums, parks, fire stations and more. All these are places where you can learn more about STEM. You need to learn STEM skills in order to work at these places. Each week in July,  FNN visited a new STEM location. Here are our picks for STEM on the Hill.

Watkins Recreation Center is great. We took a trip to Watkins, played basketball and met new people. We used STEM while we played basketball because we used science. The muscles in our bodies worked together to help us move and play on the playground or b-ball area. Watkins has a football field, baseball field, basketball court, roller skating rink and swimming pool. Watkins is exciting because we can exercise and play sports with our friends or do things like have water fights.

The Capitol Hill Fire Station is connected with STEM because of the technology used to locate and fight fires. We toured the station and met real life STEM heroes. They allowed FNN reporters to climb into the trucks, try on the uniforms and even see all the technology.

Gamestop is located next to Harris Teeter in southeast.We played a few new games and looked to see what would be coming out soon.  It is connected with STEM because of the software and technology used to engineer and play games.

Harris Teeter is across the street from Chamberlain. They have a bakery, salad bar, fresh food and more. It is connected with STEM because of the math you need to order and buy food, engineering to build the store and the science to grow the food. We enjoyed tasting the bakery items and fruit here.

The Air and Space Museum is connected with STEM because of the science behind aircraft and spacecrafts, technology used to explore other planets, engineering to build the museum and things in the exhibits such as the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Math is used everywhere including the cost for the IMAX, restaurants and gift shops.

One place we visited virtually (online field trip) is Lockheed Martin. They sponsored the Science and Engineering Festival at the Convention Center last year and is a company that's full of STEM careers. They are STEM because they research, design and work to create advanced technology systems and services.  You  can got to this website, http://www.lockheedmartin.com/ and see some stem connections for ideas for what you want to be when you grow up after college. You can also see future technology connections. This company has many locations including southeast D.C.

There are so many places to visit that we didn’t get a chance to see it all. But we can recommend all the places we visited. These are fun places in our community to have fun with STEM.

Noah Sharpe, Tarrell Shoemaker and Marvin Moore are 7th grade students at Friendship Chamberlain Academy.