Chief Science Officers (CSO) is a club whose members promote Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) within the school and community. Every school year, CSOs develop an action plan that they must complete by the end of the school year.
CSOs attend a leadership training (LTI) in September and learn how to become active leaders within their community. Then, in November, students go to their first fall cabinet meeting, where members collaborate with CSOs from other schools. They visualize their action plan and ideas to complete during the school year. In January, members attended the spring cabinet meeting and finalized their action plans. They collaborated with other CSOs to discuss their plans and created a brief presentation to share their ideas. Finally, in April, members celebrate their accomplishments by having an end-of-the-year celebration where everyone shares the outcome of their action plans in a small presentation.
This year, many CSOs decided to set up interactive tables at West Branch’s STEAM Night, held on February 19. CSOs Evan Emigh and Evan Wooster hosted a booth where young children built bridges using popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and tape. Coby Kephart and Skyler Hebel managed a booth focused on pipette art and surface tension, allowing children to use pipettes to create droplets on paper with food coloring and water. Students could also see how many drops of water they could balance on a penny without breaking the surface tension. Hannah Ishler’s booth was all about fingerprints. It educated kids on what they are, how they are used, and how they can fingerprint themselves and their friends using pencils. Emily Shingledecker and Ally McCamley had kids building Lego bridges. All the builds were unique, and the kids had a lot of fun. “We’re looking forward to next year!” said CSO Emily Shingledecker. “We are happy with how well STEAM night went,” said Coby Kephart.
The CSOs will attend the end-of-year celebration in April, where they will share their accomplishments. Mrs. Gay has been the CSO’s advisor for five years and looks forward to another successful year.
