Lynx Expo showcases district to the community

LYNX Expo ’22 showed off the academic excellence of the Oley Valley School District with an open house of the school buildings and learning spaces of the elementary school, middle school and high school on the evening of Wednesday, May 18, 2022. The event was a showcase of excellence in education for faculty and staff in all curriculum and content areas and specifically featured student displays of fine arts, integrated STEM activities and creative applications of learning.

Community partnerships and opportunities were on display in the middle school cafeteria where a Futures Fair was held. Similar to a college and career fair, the Futures Fair is designed to share resources and educate our school community about the opportunities for learning and career development at all ages. The Futures Fair included a display of the STEM in the Valley high school career pathways, Berks Career and Technical Centers, Reading Area Community College, local universities and military recruiters and local employers such as Levan Machine, East Penn Manufacturing and Searfoss Photography who shared information about the skills, activities and expectations for success in their respective areas.

Throughout the district’s three school buildings, teachers and students provided tours and demonstrations of labs and learning activities. In the elementary school, student artwork was featured in display cases and at demonstration tables throughout hallways. The Library L:EAP Center presented rounds of Reading Olympics trivia competitions featuring The Wild Robot, the focus of this year’s One School, One Book program. Exploration stations from the recent STEMfest encouraged everyone to explore, notice and wonder about physics, life science and engineering.

In addition to the Futures Fair in the middle school, participants were invited to try some robot programming and green screen videography, browse student art galleries, peak into the engineering design process of sixth grade STEM projects and review student work displayed throughout the building.

In the high school, FFA students offered tours of the agricultural wing learning centers including the hydroponics grow lab and greenhouse featuring their plant sale. STEM learning spaces including the Manufacturing Lab, BioMedical Lab and Anatomage Table, and Science on a Sphere display table were also open for exploration and discussion with teacher leaders.

The music department presented ensembles, soloists and student groups in a diverse schedule throughout the event. Each building featured different musical presentations including the high school jazz band, middle school soloists, jazz band and woodwind ensembles, and elementary school string ensemble.

The Oley Valley Community Education Foundation, whose support includes connecting our classrooms to local business and industry as well as significant funding for our learning resources and spaces, shared information and offered opportunities to further support the learning of the Oley Valley School District with tables in each building. LYNX Expo ’22 was a successful showcase of partnerships for learning and the creative development of opportunities that comprise the world class education available to students of the Oley Valley School District.