UNION GAP, Wash.- La Salle High School is showing off its student work at its first ever STEM fair.
Students, parents and community members got to see an open house of what the high school is teaching on March 9. The event featured a wooly mammoth exhibit, a mobile planetarium and, the one most people flocked to, a hot air balloon.
“We’re looking for the opportunity to share what we’re about with the public,” said La Salle President Ted Kanelopoulos. “We thought this would be an important opportunity to share our programs, especially our STEM programs.”
Joining the party was Dr. Misty Bentz, an astrophysicist from Georgia State Univeristy.
Dr. Bentz presented a short lecture to students and parents about black holes, and why everything we know about black holes is wrong.
“You think of a hole, you think of a hole outside that you’ve dug into the ground,” says Dr. Bentz. “There is an empty patch surrounded by stuff”
Dr. Bentz grew up in Spokane and went to the University of Washington, getting her first hands on experience with telescopes at Manastash Ridge Observatory.
Students learning alongside their parents is what the school was hoping to do with this event, the first of its kind hosted by La Salle.
“We believe strongly education to be a partnership between the school and the parent and the student and to see them learning alongside their students, It’s been fun to see,” says Kanelopoulos.
Kanelopoulos says the school has plans to make this a tradition after seeing the success of the first year.
