STEAM Night at MOSAIC Elementary
May, 2025
by Erin Nichols, class of 2024
S.T.E.A.M. Night at MOSAIC Elementary School
On April 11, 2025, MOSAIC Elementary School hosted a S.T.E.A.M. Night for students and their families. This event was co-planned with the art teacher and I to help educate and connect our school community to nature at night.
Hallway artwork created by students
We spent the month leading up to the event reading books about nature at night, nature journaling, and creating an art installation to showcase wildlife and the night sky. We had five different areas of activities set up in which families could participate. We were excited to have several conservation organizations host information tables. These included our own Don Ficken with the St. Louis Astronomical Society and DarkSky Missouri, a NASA Solar System Ambassador, and Missouri Stream Team.
DarkSky Missouri table
We also offered star gazing presentations with the traveling Planetarium from the Challenger Learning Center, an opportunity to create owl masks, coding robot "birds" to help them "migrate" through a cityscape. Once it was dark enough and the clouds cleared out, families could go outside to look through a telescope at the moon. A few people were even able to see Jupiter! It was a great event with over 200 attendees.
Erin Nichols in front of the traveling Planetarium
Robots for coding, dressed as birds