MECHANICVILLE, N.Y. (NEWS10) -How do you get students interested in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics? According to WSWHE BOCES, you bring the classroom to them and its mobile STEAM bus was born as a result. 

“Students see a direct link between this is what you’re doing and if this catches your interest, here’s a program at BOCES when you’re older that you can take advantage of,” said Jared Davis, Director of Career and Technical Education (CTE).

More than a dozen elementary and middle school students at a time will have one class period to explore the bus, inside and out. It’s treated as more of an at-home field trip than a graded assignment. “They’re given very little instruction. You wanna go through, you wanna put your hands in and explore. We have the facilitators from BOCES here helping our staff and our students,” described Kevin Kolakowski, Superintendent of Mechanicville CSD.

“We keep it low-tech with things like Lego bricks where they can build and do different challenges and we also have some really high-tech. We have something called zSpace; a laptop that brings augmented reality to life and they can learn different parts of CTE by learning like how to change the oil in a car, how mechanics work,” explained Laurie Guyon with BOCES.

The trades students learn about in the mobile classroom can be continued at BOCES. Current students in the Auto Body Repair, HVAC and Constuction Trades programs all contributed to the bus while working towards their careers.

“Being able to go to some of these elementary schools farther out is just a great opportunity for the kids to try something different and be exposed to this type of thing,” stated Amy Madden, Constituent Liason for Assemblymember Mary Beth Walsh.

The STEAM bus will be out in the community at events like the Washington County Fair and Women in STEAM starting this summer. It will also be traveling to the other thirty school districts serviced by WSWHE BOCES in the fall.

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