Students in downtown Roanoke for STEAM day

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - 1,300 kids in grades K-12 in our hometowns attended Roanoke STEAM day, where they got to explore four free exhibits introducing them to Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math.

Students packed local museums, The Roanoke Higher Education Center and Radford University Carilion.

“So we’re hoping to expose them to ideas and exhibits to things that may get their mind going and get them excited about what they might do in the future,” said Don Pizzullo, the senior program manager at the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center and chair of the STEAM day organizing committee.

He says all this was done without a budget.

“One of the things that I’ve been fortunate with working here at Virginia Tech is that I do have the ability to bring those things to the community and the kids. So you know we do this without a budget, we do this just with sheer volunteer power. So it’s really awesome that we’re able to do this consistently,” explained Pizzullo.

This is the second STEAM day coming out of the pandemic and the first time they’ve had this number of kids attend.

“Last year we only had about 400 kids. This year we were not expecting to triple our numbers, but hopefully every year we’ll continue to get bigger, we’ll have more exhibits, we’ll have more opportunities for the kids,” said Pizzullo.

Students look forward to SREAM day each year, so the plan is to keep it going.

“We have schools that come back each year and say, “hey are you doing STEAM day again?” And we’re always excited to be able to say yes, yes, we are and invite them back,” said Pizzullo.

The hope is for STEAM day to get bigger and better and each year and to find partners and volunteers to make that happen.

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