The IEEE Pikes Peak Section STEAM-TEAMS Monthly Meeting for June will focus on a special two-session introduction to Snap Circuits and PhET Interactive Simulations designed to help prepare volunteers, students, parents, and future mentors for the 2026 Cool Science Carnival Day and Festival events scheduled from October 3 through October 18, 2026.

This session is part of a larger effort to build a sustainable and scalable STEM outreach pipeline through hands-on learning, mentorship, and community engagement. Participants will experience how physical Snap Circuits activities can be combined with PhET simulations to help students visualize invisible engineering and science concepts such as current flow, switches, LEDs, motors, conductivity, logic, and photonics principles.

Unlike previous STEAM-TEAMS meetings that focused primarily on general outreach coordination and introductory demonstrations, this June session will place greater emphasis on instructional preparation, guided demonstrations, and volunteer readiness for large-scale public STEM engagement during Cool Science events.

Topics and Activities Include:
• Hands-on Snap Circuits demonstrations
• Guided PhET simulation activities
• Connecting physical circuits with virtual simulations
• STEM outreach strategies for families and K-12 students
• Volunteer preparation for Cool Science Carnival Day
• Building mentorship and leadership through STEM activities
• AI-assisted multimedia concepts for future outreach support

This June session is intended to serve as the first of multiple follow-up training and preparation sessions leading into the October Cool Science events. Additional sessions will continue to expand demonstrations, volunteer coordination, mentorship opportunities, and educational content development throughout the summer and early fall.

The IEEE Pikes Peak Section continues to explore ways to make engineering education more visible, interactive, and family friendly while strengthening leadership development through mentorship and community service.

Reference:
Snap Circuits STEM Outreach Resource:
https://r5.ieee.org/pikespeak/snap-circuits

Previous IEEE vTools Event Example:
https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/556262