COLUMBUS GROVE, Ohio (WLIO) - Starting last year, GROB Systems Inc. has been putting together activities for students across the area to learn about different topics relating to the world of STEM. These activities are designed to cater to each age group to introduce concepts in a way that students of different grade levels can understand.
Recently they stopped by Columbus Grove Elementary School and worked with Mrs. Dipnarine's first graders to put together foam cars and see how far could fling them across the floor. The idea was to see how they could improve their car's efficiency from one try to the next. Staff say that the students always have a lot of fun with activities like these.
"We love it because we don't usually have anyone come in at our grade level, first grade has very few things that come in - it's usually third and fourth, beyond, so we love that we have someone come in," said Laura Dipnarine, first grade teacher at Columbus Grove. "We did this last year with GROB, they came in multiple times, and for the kids to do STEM activities work one-on-one is a lot of fun. This age will do anything if you approach it the right way with them, so it's been great."
Even though students this young often don't have exposure to focused STEM concepts, simple activities like this could be that push to explore something complex as they get older.
"It makes a big difference to introduce some of that stuff to get them interested, on why it works, why does this happen," Dipnarine said. "As you saw on our thing today, they were figuring out, 'how can I make my car go farther?' It stimulates that mind to have them achieve more."
GROB was projected to work with 1,800 area students last year and the program has seen more interest this school year. Last school year, we caught up with GROB working with fourth graders at Elida. You can read more about that activity here.
