By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Second-grade students in Amanda Bush’s class at Kingwood Christian School peered over a wall on top of one of the school’s stairwells as they prepared to drop handmade paper helicopters to the floor below on Dec. 2.

Once Bush said “Ready, go,” the kids displayed wide smiles as their contraptions rotated gently as they fell about 20 feet to the ground.

“What would happen if you didn’t have paperclips to weigh down the bottom of the helicopters?” KCS Principal Ruth Gray asked the kids.

“They would be flying all over the place,” one of the students responded as she retrieved her helicopter at the bottom of the stairwell.

While the students were all smiles as they completed the activity, they were learning real-world skills they will be able to use as they move into life after elementary, middle and high school, Gray said.

Throughout the day on Dec. 2, KCS students completed several educational activities as part of the school’s STEM day, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math education.

While the second-graders made paper helicopters, other students created zipline racers, wrote computer code, constructed simple mechanical contraptions using a variety of materials and more.

While the students completed the activities, they were learning several real-world lessons, such as the importance of teamwork, the process behind imagining and building something and the method of applying classroom lessons in a hands-on setting.

“We are primarily focusing on developing engineering skills today,” said KCS fourth-grade teacher Sarah Jane Thorn, whose students were working to build wedges out of popsicle sticks. “They are given a bag of supplies, and they’ve got to build something out of those materials.”

On the other side of campus, the KCS high school students were quietly gathered into groups as they worked to write computer code.

“This teaches them basics of computer science, which is so important,” said high school science teacher Chelsey Bartlett. “Computers are everywhere now – In our cars, everyone has a smartphone – so this is a real-world skill.”