Come to the lab and have your kids create, learn, and give mom a gift that keeps giving! Together with the STEAM-TEAM, they will use the laser engraver and illustrator software to create Mom a customized flower box for Mother’s day.
They will pick the seeds of their choice, from flowers to herbs, add soil and plant them. Just show up and we will do the rest!
Here is a great piece on the Makerlab event by our local WTEN news =)
Check out this great piece on our Mother’s Day event and STEAMwhiz! So excited to be reaching our community!
We are happy to announce STEAMwhiz Winter Session 2021: Energy is Everywhere will be starting the week of Jan. 18th!
With science guiding us, monitoring local metrics and statistics, and adhering to and exceeding local, regional, and national safety and health protocols, STEAMwhiz is ready to continue to offer invaluable, in-person labs and empower your NextGen Thinkers & Doers!
Jan. 18-22 All Winter Session Labs will begin
Feb. 15-19 February Recess: No Regular Scheduled Labs (Possible Make-up Labs)
March 29-Apr. 2 Final Week of Regular Scheduled Labs
Apr. 5-9 Possible Make-up Labs
Winter Session 2021 has two-weeks built in exclusively for make-ups.
We will work with you on a case-by-case basis to arrange the make-up times and days. In the unlikely chance we are not able to make up the day, we will prorate the days no questions asked =)
In the event of a shutdown, don’t worry we have a plan in place for that as well. We will offer a combination of live streaming and pre-recorded lab sessions with creative, multi-media content to keep our STEAMwhiz kids discovering, thinking, and creating at home, all while having fun with serious science. Hands-on materials will be checked out via contactless pick-up for these labs.
Let’s face it, we are going to have sniffles, sneezing, etc. Normal, common-sense policies will apply. If your child is sick help them get better at home and don’t worry about the lab. We will make sure they make them up! Once they are recovered–masks, social distancing, handwashing, dedicated HVAC w/high-level filtration, nightly UV-C lab sanitation, hard-surface wipe downs, temperature checks, etc. will continue to keep the lab safe.
If your child develops new symptoms here are our guidelines:
Wait the 10 day COVID-19 quarantine time prescribed by the CDC
— OR —
Have your child tested at a local COVID-19 test sites
In the event your child(ren)’s school, classroom, or building is placed on pre-cautionary quarantine, please contact us as soon as possible, adhere to the pre-cautionary quarantine regulations, and we will work with you to make-up any missed labs.
Together we can keep a safe environment for our kids to learn during these trying times.
Hi everyone, we are tracking the numbers and our plan to start Winter Session on Jan. 18th. It is clear that travel and the holidays have made an impact and caused a spike in the local cases. Looking more carefully at the data, we are hopeful though that we will be able to return to the lab soon. We will make a final decision toward the end of the week as new data becomes available.
For reference we are over 2 times the daily infection rate than we were in late November/early December, 255 (now) vs 100 (then) new cases a day but it does look to be flattening out.
If we look at the number of COVID-19 deaths in NY, it’s clear we are much better at treating COVID-19 than we were at the start of the pandemic, as the number of cases is much higher now but the number of deaths remains much lower.
Locally in Albany, we are roughly at 1-3 deaths a day for the last month or so mostly from adult care centers/nursing homes. In light of the ability of hospitals to treat COVID-19 effectively, it is imperative local hospitals remain well below capacity. Hospital and ICU capacity in the capital region is at 23% and 18%, respectively, and we are not classified as a hotspot in the state of NY. The zone classifications are based on microclusters and hospital capacities.
If we look at relevant school numbers in our local area, there have been no new recent cases which is encouraging. This follows trends that have shown schools are safer due to the controlled environment and prevented policies in place to protect students. At the STEAMwhiz lab, we have set up even more stringent protocols to make sure our students are safe. In fact, this 2-week delay is a proactive measure we took to ensure our student’s safety! Let’s see how things shake out by the end of the week.
Finally, we are reaching out to STEAMwhiz parents regarding STEAMwhiz masks for use during labs. We have fabricated 40% of the masks for STEAMwhiz students and hope to finish them in the next week or so. Be on the lookout for a message from us in the near future. Thank you for your patience and we look forward to having the students back in the lab soon!
Hi everyone. In light of the increased travel across the country, high daily hospitalizations in our area, and a possibly highly contagious mutated strain of COVID-19 detected in the states, we have decided to postpone the start of the winter session for a couple of weeks. We will reassess based on how things go. For those who have RSVP’ed, no need to worry about being charged. We won’t start monthly billing until after the winter session starts, so sit tight. We are hopefully that January won’t be as bad as predicted in our local area.
Join and stay connected on STEAM Connection. There are great activities to keep the kids engaged!
In the meantime, we will work on getting activities together for our STEAMwhiz kids! Stay tuned and be safe everyone!
“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” – Elon Musk
4 days ago history was made and it was awesome! SpaceX and NASA’S launch marked the start of the commercial crew era of U.S. human spaceflight and a return to American operated spacecraft. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center on May 30, 2020, and docked 19 hours later with the ISS. NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station is a critical final flight test of the SpaceX crew transportation system.
I can’t believe it has been almost 10 years since the last American space shuttle was launched. Launches were tracked, watched in school, celebrated accomplishments, or mourned losses. Space was my thing! When the book, Apollo 13 was released, my friend and I had a competition to see who could finish it the fastest. I don’t quite remember who won that competition, but I do remember dreaming of becoming an astronaut. Even though my life path was turned in a different direction, I never stopped being awed by the greatness of space, space flight, and space exploration. Maybe my love from space came from living a short drive from Cape Canaveral and being able to witness rockets shooting to the stars. But I believe it is something much simpler, ingrained in all humans, uniting humanity together; the spirit of exploration! And this launch revived that spirit in me.
NASA, America’s space program, will continue to work with commercial companies like SpaceX and Boeing to design, build, test, and operate cost-effective human transportation systems to low-Earth orbit and eventually beyond. While this is an important mission, this is not what brought on tears and goose-bumps as I watched SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket the Crew Dragon spacecraft safely to the ISS with my young children. It was being able to witness the spirit of humanity working together and creating a “future better than the past” for my children and my children’s children. While STEAMwhiz is not physically launching astronauts into space (hmmm…maybe one day!), we hope our philosophy to inspire a love of learning and doing by making keen observations, asking insightful questions, and learning exciting stuff, will keep humans among the stars. We and all humankind are ready for the ‘Next Giant Leap!’
