Flagstaff Community STEM Celebration a Huge Success

The 2nd Annual Flagstaff Community STEM Celebration took place at the Northern Arizona University J. Walkup Skydome on Wednesday, April 1st from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. This event is a celebration of all things STEM in Flagstaff! Twenty-eight K-12 schools were represented, including robotics teams and STEM Clubs. There were activities and demonstrations from Coconino Community College, the many science, technology, engineering and math clubs and departments from Northern Arizona University, and over 50 STEM-related businesses, non-profits, and government agencies.

The origin of the large community STEM Celebration lay in conversations that Jillian Worssam (an 8th grade science teacher, STEM club advisor, and founder of the Scientists in the Classroom program) had with Karin Eberhard (FUSD Community Relations Director) and with Dave Engelthaler (Chair of Flagstaff Forty and Director of Operations for TGen North). Many of us were seeing that our STEM partners (e.g. businesses like W.L. Gore and TGen North, and government agencies like the USGS and AZ Game and Fish) were being asked to display information and have activities at more and more school STEM nights around town. Jillian held a STEM Night at Sinagua Middle School and thought how wonderful it would be if we could have a community-wide STEM Celebration that involved the District schools, charter schools, and parochial schools; one large event for all our students, that would not tax our STEM partners with multiple events each year. This vision was shared with Karin and Dave and now FUSD and STEM City work together to plan this event. We could not have this event without NAU's contribution of the J. Walkup Skydome. Our other key sponsors are APS and Suddenlink, who respectively provided print materials and radio and TV spots.