INDIANAPOLIS — The Northwest Middle School fieldhouse attracted a crowd Friday night, but not for a basketball game. STEM students took over the hardwood and showed off their ideas for a better world.
The Indianapolis Public School STEM Innovation Fair featured more than 100 projects from students between kindergarten and 8th grade.
The fair is in its third year and IPS science coordinator Mary Catherine Dillon said the event is becoming more popular with each edition.
"We started initially with 50 students our first year and 70 students in our second year...now there are 140 students," Dillon said. "We were in an elementary school gym last year, but the superintendent said, 'I think you need a bigger space.'"
The innovation fair attracted several repeat participants, including Leia Zimski from Eleanor Skillen School 34, an elementary school.
"I have been waiting all year for this," Zimski said. "I did it last year and I loved it."
Zimski and her classmate Myniah Merritt developed an exhibit featuring a fully-operational fish tank.
"Our project is aquaponics," Zimski said. "It is a self-sustainable cycle where the fish eat the roots of the plant, then they poop which fertilizes the plant and makes it grow better."
Fellow School 34 students Mayeni Marban, Gwen Stone, and Lucy Ray developed a plan for a self-sustainable city instead because of litter in Indianapolis.
"We were looking at how the city was so trashed and really crowded and how there's no people helping out," Marban said.
Students from Rousseau McClellan School 91 also used real-world inspiration for their exhibits. One group imagined a robot powered by a lemon which would clean up trash, and another thought up a robot which could efficiently extinguish wildfires after learning about the Southern California fires.
"This is not your basic science fair," said Kelly Fisher, an educator at School 91. "It can touch every aspect of your life and just see how STEM solutions can really come in and change the world."
