Julia Wargo
Staff Writer
On November 12, 2015, a gathering of students in Milford was conducted at Mathewson Elementary School, called the Mathewson Science Night. A teacher at Foran High, Mr. Czarnecki, helped to administer this organization, and also displayed the Technical Education program held here at Foran.
At this convention, students get to walk around and look at the selection of science-related projects, some of which are hands-on. This primarily serves for the kids to have fun, but also introduces their curiosity to the world of science and marine biology. The main attraction at the science night was Chris Greene from an outfit called Hands-On Science Enrichment. He is a tall, goofy guy, and plays a mad scientist, and had a lab set-up with many sensory experiments, in which the kids were mesmerized by.
Another participant was Bridgeport’s Aquaculture School. Four students from this school attended Mathewson and displayed tanks of live creatures found in Long Island Sound. This station helped children learn more about organisms, many are familiar along the Milford shoreline. Families get more introduced to this college-preparatory program, which is also open to Milford students when they reach high school.
Familiar faces were seen at the Mathewson Science Night. Suzanne Thomas from the Milford Public Library appeared, and brought a magnet balancing activity. Meanwhile displaying her science experiment, she promoted the Library’s new makerspace, The Brain Station. Fourth grade science teacher, Cara Seward, challenged students with a force and motion activity where the object that takes the longest time to reach the end wins. Team Trashasaurus, one of Milford’s three First LEGO League robotics teams also made a showing to this event. Four out of nine members are students at Mathewson. The FLL program challenged kids to work together to build a LEGO Mindstorms robot and made it compete against other teams.
Mathewson Science Night was organized by Mathewson parents Augie and Emmeline Harrigan. They had helped organize this event for the past three years at Meadowside Elementary with the help of teachers, Hope Pardee and Corinne Macdonald. The idea for this night was constructed off the basis of how fun and educationally enriching the subjects are.
