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As president of the Reach Foundation, Seif has spent hours upon hours studying the needs of local teachers and figuring out ways to make them happen in a school system that she says is "offering some pretty fantastic learning events for students."
All of those "needs" will be on display as actual classroom experiments or arts or, even robots, during the STEAM Expo.
"Parents might know that their kindergartener is coding the Scratch program, but do they know there is much more to come at the middle and high school levels that will take their child out in to the world where they will easily find a job with the skills they learned right here," she said.
The expo shows what the foundation and the school system have been able to do with the grants that the foundation provides to teachers across the district each year.
The grants, $150,000 since the foundation was created in 1998, might be used for stand-up desks for students with special needs, or yoga and mindfulness classes for first-graders.
In addition, the expo will feature the Challenger Center's mobile Planetarium showing movies, Mario the Magician who utilizes the principals of STEAM and an engineer who worked on the Hubble Telescope. In addition, an art show featuring recycled items, robots constructed by Suffern High School students will also be on display along with 3-D printers with special activities planned for children.
She added that REACH is looking at the STEAM Expo as an opportunity to showcase the phenomenal learning that goes on throughout the district and enable the community at large to see how REACH functions as the education foundation within the district.
"It all started when a social worker mentioned she needed help with bullying, and all these years later I find myself president of this fantastic organization," Seif added.
For more information on the Expo or the foundation, click here.
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