Full STEAM Ahead: First Annual Maker Faire a success

The English Montreal School Board was proud to hold its first annual STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics) Maker Faire in the Agora Room of the LaurenHill Junior Campus in St. Laurent recently.

Several STEAM schools within our Board represented themselves nicely with their own  projects while others came simply to visit the impressive exhibits.  Also in attendance was LEARN, a non-profit educational organization, who themselves displayed several highly interactive STEAM related activities.  Visitors were clearly engaged in all activities offered by both STEAM schools and LEARN. 

There were 12 schools that displayed projects this year (Westmount Park, Sinclair Laird, Honoré Mercier, Michelangelo, Elizabeth Ballantyne, Carlyle, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, John Paul I, Dunrae Gardens, Dalkeith, Bancroft, and Coronation).  In addition, there were a further 11 schools which had students bussed in to view the exhibits (Westmount Park, Sinclair Laird, Pierre de Coubertin, Honoré Mercier, Gardenview, General Vanier, Michelangelo, Elizabeth Ballantyne, Carlyle, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and James Lyng).  All told, there were 377 students visiting, 60 students who presented, and several esteemed guests from the EMSB community. 

A significant amount of positive feedback was received by several members of the STEAM team.

Said one of the participating school representatives  immediately following the event: “We just got back to Sinclair Laird and the grade 4 class insisted we thank the people responsible for organizing the Maker Faire, so thank you. They had a blast and were really attentive and engaged with all the projects.  It was also great for the teachers to see and get ideas for next year (it was all relative to the time we had, but we will come back bigger and stronger next year)”.