Dear Parents of Hollywood Hill Elementary,

As we are now in a situation of learning from home, and events in the near future are cancelled for in-person participation, we would still love to provide your student with the opportunity to work towards a goal and focus on a project. Although our STEM FAIR for 2020 was due to happen at the end of April, we don't want your student to miss out on the idea and experience this type of event brings. So we have decided to go VIRTUAL! Yes, this year the STEM FAIR is still a go, but will be conducted entirely online and we invite you all to participate, share your inventions, your investigations and your inquiring minds to prepare a project, or simply join the group to see what others come up with! Reminder that this idea is being put together by the PTA and HH STEM Chair Lauren Marantz and we are innovating plans to render this a virtual STEM Fair as best we can. 

How and Where? = Join this Private Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/614992109341372/    called Hollywood Hill Virtual STEM FAIR 2020 . 

            This page is a private group where new members will be verified with the school registry, so that anything your child writes is protected within the group and not public. It is now up and running with links to project worksheets you can print, links to ideas and suggestions as well as our STEM Fair Website   hollywoodhillscience.wordpress.com  . IF you do not have Facebook or want to deal with posting directly, please email Lauren at Lagallow@gmail.com with your images, short description, name of Student, and that could even be as simple as listing as "Lauren M. , 4th Grade" if you prefer less info. 

When? = For the rest of March and through early April, the student should come up with their idea, make a plan and write out the steps for their STEM Fair project.  Beginning April 1st through April 24th each student will have their project post added to the Facebook page.

What?= Write up your scientific method, the methods used to create your project, your results, whatever best documents the type of project you are doing.  Here is a worksheet to help organize the planning of the project with Scientific Method Worksheet. Whenever you are ready, have an adult take pictures of your written work where the writing is clearly visible and takes up most of the picture, take photos of the project / creation / experiment /  and then post them along with a short description of your project (2-3 sentence summary). Each student will get 1 post dedicated to their project, and each day in April between 2-4 posts will be approved to the group so everyone has their moment to shine! Please abide by courtesy rules in terms of clean & appropriate content. Once I have a received a few project images, there will also be a few added to the Hollywood Hill STEM Fair website to be highlighted for others to check out there as well. No images of students will be posted onto that website. 

After? = After you have posted your project and images, they will be up on the HH Virtual STEM FAIR 2020 Facebook group for other students to observe, learn from and comment on. A few days after your project has been posted, the comments on your post as well as an evaluation page and commentary by a science teacher (myself) will be printed up and if you wish, can be mailed to the student's home, along with a STEM FAIR 2020 Participant Ribbon! (Address for mailing will be retrieved using student registry on HH PTA site, if your address is not there but you still wish to have your child receive something in the mail, you can email it to me, or simply add it http://hhillpta.org/Home ).

We are excited to be able to bring something such as this virtual focus and science discovery to your home as you navigate this new experience and hope it provides you and your child with a fun project. This is a great opportunity to let them dive into answering questions they had about science, maybe even about viruses / germs / scientists / surface porosity / the math of doubling / the science of sound like those singing in the apartments in Italy and so much more. Please reach out to Lauren Marantz Lagallow@gmail.com if you have any questions!

Thank You,

Lauren Marantz