Each year, Hemet Unified School District hosts a Family STEAM Night at Cawston Elementary School for their fifth graders to learn about careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. This year, seven of our team members attended and walked students through the fun and exciting activity of building their own house. Students put their ingenuity and creativity to the test as they created a floor plan for their home, calculated square footage, and imagined materials that would make up their rooms.
“It’s not every day that kids are exposed to these careers and get to meet people in these jobs. You never know when something like this is going to have a huge and lasting impact on someone’s life. They could go home thinking, ‘I want to be an architect!’ When they didn’t even know that was a career when they woke up that morning.”
The event is designed to help fifth graders at Cawston Elementary discover careers with applied skills in their everyday subjects—how mastering multiplication tables can help them calculate square footage as an architect, or how keeping a drawing journal could one day lead to them being an incredible schematic designer. The fifth graders aren't the only ones impacted. The parents and younger siblings in attendance benefited too.
“There was a first grader there with her older brother that made a big impression on me. At six-years-old, she was already dreaming up her master bathroom—in extreme detail too! She even had it down to the texture and color she wanted on her wall tiles. I thought to myself, ‘This girl has a gift for interior design.’ I was excited to recommend design magazines to her mom so she could imagine in even more detail.”
STEAM night is about helping kids see their potential, uncover hidden talents, and connect them with passionate professionals in those fields. It reminded many of our team members of what sparked their interest in the area and who instilled that drive in them.
“A lot of kids have the potential, but not as many have the opportunity to learn more. I was honored to spend time working with these kids one-on-one and see future architects in the making.”