At the Whitehall-Coplay School Board meeting March 9, Gockley Elementary School Principal Denise Saylor gave a presentation that included two short videos showing first-grade classes participating in activities promoting both STEM and literature skills. The project was pioneered by Abby Koch, first-grade teacher at Gockley Elementary, as part of her graduate work.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“She had the idea of focusing on STEM, so we got together, and we figured, ‘What can we do to make this initiative easier for our teachers at Gockley?’ So, we wanted to have a bank of lessons that would be easy for them to implement and be ready to go that would tie to literature as well as the STEM initiative,” Saylor said.

For example, one classroom was challenged to engineer a working parachute, while incorporating the book “Rosie Revere, Engineer,” by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts. Another class used “Iggy Peck, Architect,” by the same authors, to help the class discuss how to go about building a bridge.

Saylor also discussed an app called Seesaw, which the PTO helped Gockley purchase. The app allows parents to see pictures or view videos of their children hard at work in the classroom.

“This app is helping us connect with families a whole lot more than we were in previous years, because the parents sign up for the app, and they can specifically see things that their child is doing during the day, while they’re at school,” she said.

Also at the meeting, David Wacker, industrial arts and technology education teacher at Whitehall High School, discussed the Governor’s STEM Competition through the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

“We were given the opportunity to participate in the Governor’s STEM Competition. Gov. (Tom) Wolf puts it on, and it has actually been in motion for a long time. We were given $500 for five students to create a product to benefit the lives of Pennsylvanians,” Wacker said.

Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21 in Schnecksville hosted the challenge. The team competed against Parkland High School and Palmerton Area High School, coming in second place. This was WHS’ first year participating.

The group felt a common problem people have is neck pain, due to frequent use of cellphones. They created a folding cellphone stand, small enough for the pocket, that can be adjusted so the screen is easily viewable without having to bend the neck at an awkward angle.

In other news, Grady Schmeckenbecher, WHS Student Council vice president, discussed the success of the Mini-THON held March 6 at the school to raise money to fight childhood cancer.

“We had over 170 students participating there, and we raised $13,212 for childhood cancer for the Four Diamonds cause. I was just informed that Gockley raised over $2,000 just with their fundraisers,” Schmeckenbecher said. “So, we hit our goal of $15,000 already this year, and we still have Steckel’s (Elementary) donations coming in and a few other fundraisers we’re doing throughout the year.”

The next school board meeting will be 7 p.m. April 14.

Committee meetings on finance/personnel, education/student activities and operations/transportation will be held 4 p.m. March 23 and April 27.