McMinnville Education Foundation partners with the McMinnville School District to offer Kindergarten through 5th grade students hands-on science enrichment experiences, conducted in and outside the classroom.

Students in the McMinnville High School Pathways programs work alongside the teachers during these experiences. There’s nothing like teaching a subject to learn it yourself!

• Kindergarten: Habitats in Class and Outside
• 1st Grade: Sound Travel at Evergreen Museum 
• 2nd Grade: Habitats at Miller Woods
• 3rd grade: Build, Test and Compete with Lego Robotics at Evergreen Museum
• 4th Grade: Earth’s Changing Features at Metsker Park
• 5th Grade: Physical and Chemical Changes and Interaction of Earth’s Major Systems at Haskins Creek Water Treatment Plant

Shared by Carol McCulley, MEF Board Member

The Evergreen Air & Space Museum is a great place to study science. On their way to the areas in which they will study sound & light or test the robots they built, the students enter the main hall of the museum, which has all kinds of airplanes including the Spruce Goose. Some are even hanging from the ceiling. Students can ascend the stairs to see them up close and from a different perspective.

The 1st graders study how sound and light travel. They get very excited when they rub their hands on the edges of bowls of water just right and the bowls begin to “sing” and the water begins to “dance.” I have gone on these field trips to Evergreen and helped the students see the connection between their rubbing the bowls and the movement of the water and the sounds and why it happens. The excitement is infectious.