This episode is dedicated to the upcoming Big STEAM event, that is taking place Saturday, February 21st, inside LCC's Arts & Sciences Building. Designed specifically for students in grades 7 through 12, this initiative aims to foster engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) through interactive activities and demonstrations. Guests Kirsten Wright and Luanne Cuthbert, both educators at Lansing Community College, discuss the event's significance and its evolution alongside Steam Fest. This Big STEAM event is free and open to the public.

Website: Big STEAM

Event details

11 a.m. - 1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, at the LCC Downtown Campus, Arts and Sciences Building (maps and parking information provided upon registration.)

Questions? Contact Kirsten Wright at 517-483-1092 or wrighk28@lcc.edu.

Welcome to the Star Zone. I'm Patty Spagnuolo. From resource fairs geared towards our students to arts and entertainment aimed to connect with our community.

Lansing Community College hosts many events throughout the year. And the Star Zone gives you a rundown on what's on the way, where it's happening, and how you can get into the zone at lcc. Welcome to the Star Zone.

I'm Patty Spagnuolo, your host. Today we are talking about Big STEAM. My guests are Kirsten Wright. Kirsten is an MSU graduate.

She studied environmental geoscience and geology, worked in environmental remediation to clean up contaminated sites in Michigan and around the US and now she teaches at LCC in the geology program. My second guest is Lu Anne Cuthbert. Lu Anne teaches biology and physical science at LCC and has been with the college for 47 plus years.

She has worked on the Science Olympiad, STEAM Fest, and now Big STEAM. Thank you both for joining the show today.

Hi, Patty.

Thank you. Hi, Patty.

Hi. Okay, first question. Why the name Big STEAM? What does that mean?

It comes from an event that we've had for many, many years, which is STEAM Fest that happens in November every year.

And now instead of gearing it towards K through 6 students, which is what STEAM Fest does now we're setting up an event for 7th through 12th grade students. We're going to amp it up and have lots of math and science activities for the larger students.

Great.

So when I was going through this and I always get confused, I'm involved in all of these external groups, but it started out as stem, everything was stem. So can you kind of talk a little bit why we went to STEAM?

Sure.

I think for what I know for originally, yeah, they wanted a big emphasis on being basically what they called the hard sciences, perhaps the science, the technology, engineering and math. And it did kind of come also out of the new, relatively new objectives that K12 has.

And then art wanted to get on and it made sense because arts is big. It's arts, humanities, all of those kinds of things were basically getting left behind.

So the egg came in and it's been a ton of fun having those people join our group.

Awesome.

And I think from also what I was reading that bringing the arts in was supposed to help with some of the soft skills because sometimes when we focus only on the math, you know, the sciences, we lose that human touch maybe.

Exactly. And making it, I mean, science, I think is a lot of fun, but it makes it more fun when you throw the arts into it.

Awesome. Okay, so your event is called Big STEAM and when and where.

Big STEAM is going to happen on Saturday, February 21st.

And activities will be open from 11am until 1pm and it's going to be held across the Arts and Sciences building, throughout the building on LCC's main campus.

So is this kind of like the old Olympiad? Are you going to be dropping eggs from the stairwells?

We actually tried in l elementary olympiad way back 30, whatever years ago, but it was competitive and we wanted to lose that part because that Olympiad is extremely competitive. We wanted to lose that and wanted to emphasize the fun part and the learning and the curiosity part. So who knows? They might be dropping eggs.

I hope not. But they won't be competing. They'll be cooperating, and they'll be exploring instead.

Nice. Okay, so what is your audience?

Our audience is 7th through 12th graders and their families. So they'll come in, they'll pick activities and walk into a room, and they'll find some fun interactive things.

Some things such as shark dissection, Rocks that glow. We're going to have physics demonstrations, all kinds of things.

What's a physics demonstration for people like me who aren't so sciencey?

Well, I'm looking to see who's doing that. It's probably going be explosive.

Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Or maybe not, but it'll be wow. Kinds of stuff.

Nice. Okay, so who is sponsoring this event for you, or is it strictly an LCC event, or how does that work?

It started with LCC and our science and math department, but LAFQ is one of our big sponsors, and they stepped into STEAM Fest in November, and then they are sponsoring Big STEAM and in February.

Are you getting this out to the elementary school? You're looking at middle school, high school. Are they aware that this is going on?

We are trying to spread the word. Sometimes it's challenging.

We can contact the administrators of the junior high and high schools, but we need to reach, like, the teachers and the families. And so some of that's coming through our faculty. And we'll try to run through all kinds of channels.

So when you say families, I'm thinking people would bring their younger kids, too. So I might have a seventh grader, but I've got a third grader as well.

Science adapts and math adapts. So then especially when the parents are present or they have an adult with them, a third grader absolutely could interact with our activities.

We speak to the whole family.

We get older kids for STEAM Fest. No problem with younger kids for Big STEAM.

Okay, awesome. Is there food involved? Are we Feeding folks or cookies or something.

We're gonna have prizes at pretty much every activity. Some of those prizes will be some fruits or some snacks. Some of those prizes will be other takeaways.

We're not necessarily feeding them, but they will have some things to take home.

Nice. Okay, so what kind of impact does this have? Big STEAM, just in general, what does it have kind of impact on the community?

I was going to say, because we've done STEAM Fest for so long, people will stop me and say, hey, when is it? And I got to bring the grandkids or whatever. So they look forward to it. Students watch for it now.

And so our hope is that these kids will say it's a pretty cool place. Maybe you want to come back and go to school there.

Right. What are some of the, like the job outlook? First of all, what program would they get involved in at LCC if they are interested?

What are some things program wise, like, hey, I want to be a geologist or I want to be a physicist. What are things that they would be doing with this?

LCC is a great place to start. So if they like science but don't know anything more than that, we have programs that are designed for students to dig into that and explore.

And then they might be able to find a career job right out of LCC or steer into a four year university out of those programs and reaching these 7th through 12th graders, when they have some interests, they might know that they like science, they might know that they like living things. And there's hundreds of careers out of those. It's a great time to explore. And LCC is a great place to do that exploration.

And we serve, I think half of our department serves health careers as well. So we can entice them perhaps into some of those fields.

That is a really good point. I didn't think about that. If you're going into a healthcare field, you need the sciences and the physics.

And even as I was hearing you talk, Kirsten, I was thinking about, we are obviously a pretty good transfer school. I have to say that, full disclosure, I run the transfer center. But that is great that a student would maybe be here to explore.

But they're also earning credits and in most cases those credits do transfer. So especially in the sciences and the math and stuff. So they would be on a really good track for that. So you mentioned a couple of positions.

What are things then that people. I'm here at Big STEAM and I'm thinking, okay, I'm gonna send my kid to, you know, to lcc. What Occupation, like could they do. I know you're.

You did some contamination cleaning up, so that had to be a pretty big deal.

Yeah, I did a lot of work.

We have a conservation and sustainability program here at LCC and that can steer people into careers cleaning up contamination, which our jobs are available in Michigan. Those jobs often include an international element.

Then we also have a drone program, a lot of that geospatial, like understanding mapping and being able to put things where they are. Those are skills that can go into a lot of industries, construction, architecture, the.

Remediation as well, and city planning, all of those kinds of things.

Yeah.

This is going to sound like a weird question, but what about like even a well driller needs to know what's going on below the surface, you know what I mean?

Yep, absolutely. Wow. Okay.

So it does touch many areas, I guess is what I'm. Things that you wouldn't even think about, you know, because I know with drones. They're using drones now to fight fires.

They are, yeah.

So it's pretty. It's just growing fields, I guess agriculture too. Oh, right.

To see where do you need fertilizer? And then the drones can spread the fertilizer. So it's amazing what's going to happen with that technology.

That is incredible. What should students do today who are interested in those fields? Obviously we just rattled off quite a few things.

A student might go, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that. Now I'm going to get into agriculture and drones and all that. What should they do today?

If I'm a seventh grader or an eighth grader, what should I be doing?

I would say come to big STEAM. You'll have opportunity to do some interactive stuff, exposure to our faculty, and you can start conversations.

A lot of times those conversations can be, what is it like to take these classes? How much academics do I need? What degrees do I need? What is it like to work?

Even within environmental remediation, I had opportunities to work in field work. Those are long days. But if you love to be outside, it's great. You can also do office work.

Those kind of conversations are fantastic to have at this event.

And then in the meantime, because they may still have five years of lower education, they can take the science classes.

Don't settle for senior math, take pre calculus as a senior, or just prepare themselves for what it is they're going to have to do when they get here. And I want to say, and take the SAT seriously. So you can start where you really should be.

You know, that's so Interesting.

And I guess I think about it including the parents is such an important piece of that because students will take the easy class to get through so they have a lot of free time or whatever's going on there instead of really thinking about it as their preparation for their big step in life as in choosing a career, choosing what you're going to, you know, what degree you're going to get and where you're going to go and that type of stuff. So yeah, I think that's really important.

It's really a neat thing that you've made it a family affair instead of just students being bussed in from whatever high school during the weekday. So did I hear correctly? Pretty much all your department is gonna be there in different stations.

We're gonna have a lot of faculty from a lot of different areas, plus we're gonna have student volunteers. So there's opportunity to interact with some of our current LCC students as well.

I think that's great because students then feel welcomed and then it resonates when they wanna come back. They feel like they already know people, you know, that's such a big thing. So what else would you wanna say about this event or.

Or what other things go on at LCC for the K12 realm or the 7 through 12 realm?

We were just talking this morning about the Wilson Talent center coming in. We have that event out at West Campus. We're planning on at least seven of us being there for when the high school kids come in for exploration.

We try to be present whenever possible. We have several of the faculty members that are coming to help us out do events at the schools.

So we have quite a few of our high school advantage courses. So we're trying to get our professors, people visible. Students will know they're not scary, they're people.

And we have a very active department as far as going out and meeting with potential students.

I think that makes a big difference. Again, resonating with the students and their families. And so people feel comfortable being here in our spaces and learning.

Did you want to say anything else, Kirsten, about your event?

One thing that I would like to add is that for information about the event and you can pre register if you just go to LCC Edu Bigsteam that will take you to that registration page. If you don't have opportunity to register or forget, please still come. You don't have to be registered. Just show up.

Awesome. And the building will be open.

Absolutely.

Arts and science. Okay. We're talking about the Arts and science building on LCC's main campus. Awesome.

Well, I'd like to thank my guests Kirsten and Lu Anne today and invite you all to check out the big STEAM event happening on Saturday, February 21st. Thanks everyone and I wish you well. Thanks for joining us here on the Star Zone.

For more information on this episode, visit lccconnect.org you can also find a complete list of Lansing Community College events by visiting LCC.edu calendar. Until next time, thanks for getting into the Zone.