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Dec 28, 2023

AHS fourth

AMESBURY — Jay Gee’s Ice Cream and Fun Center in Methuen may not seem like a

AMESBURY — Jay Gee's Ice Cream and Fun Center in Methuen may not seem like a conventional spot for learning, but Amesbury Elementary School fourth-graders were reminded Thursday that their STEM coach is a master of unconventional lessons.

STEM – an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics – has been a part of school curricula for years and seen a recent spike in popularity.

STEM coach Jennifer Donais explained the educational importance of the field trip.

"They are doing their introduction to energy units, and the STEM project they are doing this time is putting an egg on a random little car, and it's going to hit a wall. And they saw that the egg opens, it cracked. So they have to make a vehicle restraint system for the car to keep the egg safe," Donais said.

Students, she said, underwent the exploration stage of the design-thinking process where they went into bumper boats, bumper cars and go-karts, to figure out each vehicle's safety restraint system.

She said that there were only a few collisions and that they served as great lessons.

"The kids hit each other or whatever by accident where they had to stop them cause it was a little car crash. So I said, ‘What made you save in that car crash?’ ‘Why were you safe during that car crash?’ They are looking at that so when they start to build they have some background knowledge on it," Donais said.

She said that the excursion served as a nice way to give the kids a fun treat while still incorporating their current curriculum.

"It's a fun field trip for them at the end of the school year," Donais said.

Fourth-grader Caroline Courtney said her biggest takeaway from the trip was learning about bumper car safety restraints.

"The tube around them was kind of like a beach tube that you’d sit on, but it was like really blown up. So when you were bouncing off of people you didn't get hurt at all. And then also the seat belts just kind of stay made you stay in place," Courtney said.

Fellow fourth-grader Renato Elias said that he was surprised how fun go-karting was.

"I didn't think it would be like that big of a track that you would go around. I thought it would just be like smaller. And they go really fast, which was fun," Elias said.

He explained how he beat the heat while being out in the sun.

"Ice cream," Elias exclaimed. "And in the bumper boats I just went under the waterfall like seven times and I got soaked."

Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: [email protected].

Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: [email protected].

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