Pasadena Unified Students Enjoy “Extraordinary” Night of Science

Ultraviolet light experiments, owl pellet dissections, and mini Mars rover demonstrations made up only a fraction of the fun at Mary W. Jackson Multilingual Magnet Elementary on Thursday, February 1 for a family event called STEAM Night.

“STEAM Night is an extraordinary, interactive evening of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. Our STEAM curriculum is foundational in everything we do. STEAM Night at Jackson empowers students to become lifelong learners, critical thinkers, and innovators in an ever-evolving world,” said Principal Veronica Villagrana, M.A. Ed.

Hundreds of students and their families enjoyed hands-on demonstrations from an impressive lineup of local organizations, many of which are world-renowned, such as SpaceX, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Science, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Armory Arts to name a few.

Event Coordinator/Parent Susannah Beven said many of the interactive exhibits were presented by fellow school parents who work for these exceptional companies and organizations.

“It’s important to show that children can be anything they want to be. They can be a part of our local nature groups, they can be a scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, they can go to California Institute of Technology for college, they can work at the ceramics studio, so exposing them to the wonderful opportunities in our area is really cool,” Beven noted.

Nicolas Carmona, a fifth grader at Jackson, found the interactive spectroscopy demonstration quite eye-opening.

“They have 3D glasses and they can show you ultraviolet light which is all of the little bits of light but the naked eye just mixes them all together,” the bright student explained.

Formerly called Astronomy Night, this is the first such event hosted by Jackson since prior to the pandemic. For more information on all the programs offered at Jackson, click here.