Children’s Discovery Center sponsored and participated in STEM in the Park, a free, hands-on, family-friendly science, technology, engineering, and mathematics event held annually in Bowling Green.

About 400 children visited our “Whatever Floats Your Boat” booth where they began by looking at inspirational pictures and designing their boats. Next, they used natural and recycled materials building their boat, keeping in mind the size, shape and strengthen of their design. After making a hypothesis of how many rocks they believed it would take to sink their creation, the testing station allowed them to put their boat in the water.       

Adding rocks one by one, many were surprised when they exceeded their original prediction and their boat continued to float. The children finished the experiment by evaluating and documenting the number of rocks it actually took to sink their boat. It was wonderful to see the parents and children working together and strategizing their approach.

Congratulations to the engineers of the top three strongest, safest boats of the day! Their boats had an amazing number of rocks before capsizing: Rocco with 96 rocks, Natalia with 55 rocks and Noah with 34 rocks.

We invite you to visit STEMinthePark.org to learn more about this community event and mark your calendars to attend next year!