Miller Place School District students at North Country Road Middle School recently competed at the Team Packard Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Challenge at Northport High School as part of a Miller Place School District program to help students develop a love of STEM subjects. The students participated in 4 different STEM challenge activities. The activities included: ‘Unlock the Box,’ which challenged the team’s problem solving skills as well as their understanding of math concepts; ‘Say Geronimo!,’ an engineering task where students designed, constructed and tested a parachute using only the materials provided; ‘Float your Boat,’ which required team members to demonstrate their mastery of the relationship between an object’s mass and volume (density); and ‘Lights, Mirrors Action!,’ which challenged the team’s ability to direct a laser beam through a series of mind challenging logic puzzles.
During the event students raised money for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) research. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Through their efforts and participation the students helped the event raise more than 21,000 dollars for The Robert Packard Center at Johns Hopkins, a non-profit organization that raises money and awareness for ALS.