UW STEM Carnival Provides Hands-On Experiences for Students

More than 40 University of Wyoming units participated in the recent second annual STEM Carnival to celebrate and highlight science facilities and units at UW with hands-on experiences for students.

The event also forges opportunities for UW students, faculty, communities and K-12 groups to learn about the cutting-edge programs and research in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) at UW. The STEM Carnival is an annual event hosted by UW’s Top-Tier Science Initiative, in partnership with the Office of the President.

“Each year, we rotate to a new facility on campus and invite the statewide community to join us for a day to highlight the amazing STEM research and programs at the University of Wyoming,” says Karagh Brummond, director of the UW Science Initiative’s Engagement and Outreach Program.

The latest STEM Carnival highlighted UW’s Engineering Education and Research Building (EERB). The facility provides spaces for modern instruction and research, including a new shop and student project areas; teaching and computer labs in an active-learning configuration; reconfigurable research labs with associated offices and collaborative spaces; meeting/conference rooms; and an expanded drilling simulator facility. The EERB is designed to be student oriented, with a variety of learning spaces and collaborative workstations.

To celebrate STEM, UW’s science departments and programs on campus provide information tables that offer hands-on activities and demonstrations for the participants during the four-hour STEM Carnival. In organizing the large-scale inreach event, the Science Initiative hopes to increase awareness of the science research on campus, connect UW with statewide partners and increase campus connections, Brummond adds.

UW faculty, student and staff representatives from the participating units across campus contributed hands-on activities and demonstrations, Brummond says.

More than 1,150 people -- 650 were K-12 students -- attended the STEM Carnival. Students were from Beitel, Harmony and Indian Paintbrush elementary schools, UW’s Lab School and Laramie Montessori School, all from Laramie; Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow schools; Rock River School; Southeast Schools in Goshen County; and Wyoming Connections Academy.

“In addition to the 40-plus hands-on STEM tables from a variety of science units on campus, we had additional activities for attendees -- mostly K-12 students -- focused on the research and facilities of the Engineering Education and Research Building,” Brummond says.

Those included the driving simulator, cybersecurity lab, artificial Intelligence lab, drilling simulator, produced water lab, hydrocarbon lab and the Innovation Wyrkshop. The Harry C. Vaughan Planetarium also hosted a program throughout the day, and physics and astronomy Professor Chip Kobulnicky led a physics demonstration with a watermelon drop off the roof of the EERB. Tours of the facility also were provided.

Atmospheric science representatives also launched two weather balloons throughout the day. UW President Ed Seidel and Gabrielle Allen, director of the UW School of Computing, were on-site at the carnival to provide students with an interactive black holes session.

“We could not be more thankful and appreciative of our STEM units offering tables and these labs for opening their spaces for students to explore,” Brummond says. “The second annual UW STEM Carnival hosted by the Science Initiative was a tremendous success that could not have been possible without the amazing STEM units on campus, researchers and support staff in the EERB.”

For a list of the UW STEM Carnival participating units, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

A third STEM Carnival is planned next Sept. 6.