The halls of Federal Way High School were packed with thousands of students and families in the school district’s largest event of the year on March 13 at their annual event exploring Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. This year, Federal Way Public Schools also added arts to the offerings, rebranding the event as STEAM Exploration NIght.

Collectively these areas of study and career pathways are referred to as STEAM — and the STEAM the Dream event had its biggest turnout ever with over 4,000 attendees.

At the school located at 30611 16th Ave. S. in Federal Way, every corner of the halls, gyms and classrooms were filled with community partners and students sharing presentations and interactive activities on every aspect of STEAM.

Booths were organized by STEAM pathways so that students and families could explore career interests by gathering information, engaging in hands-on activities, and more.

Pathways included Agriculture Education, Family and Consumer Sciences, Skilled and Technical Sciences, Health Sciences, Business and Marketing, and College and Career.

Many different community partners were present including educational institutions, local nonprofits and businesses and representatives from schools in the district to showcase their career and technical education (CTE) programs.

With a wide range of pathways to choose from, Health Sciences focused on promoting health and wellness and “planning, managing, and providing therapeutic services, diagnostics services, health informatics, support services, and biotechnology research,” according to the event website.

At one station hosted by Allied Academy Healthcare Services from Virgina Mason Franciscan Health, students learned CPR and practiced suiting up in surgeon scrubs and gloves to learn about careers in the medical field.

Dr. Dionne Dixon is the regional director for education and explained that several of the representatives there were part of the Allied Academy of Healthcare Services in a surgtech program.

The program is specifically modified to be neurodivergent friendly and provides pathways for CNA, surgtech and MAR programs.

Skilled and Technical Sciences, the largest represented pathway, filled an entire gym with a variety of local businesses and programs represented that focused on “designing, producing, planning, managing, and maintaining the built environment, or processing materials into final products.” This area also included the Arts, A/V Technology and Communication career clusters.

Agriculture Education and Family and Consumer Sciences were co-located and students and families had the chance to learn about careers related to “the essential elements of life, food, water, land, and air” and “relationship between households to their environment.”

Students here had the chance to see everything from dolphin vertebrae to native plants to a live demonstration of how to dye fabric with mushrooms and spun prizes for fun prizes from the Federal Way Public Works department, among other fun activities.

More pathways included Business and Marketing, which focused on entrepreneurship or contributing to the success of an existing business and College and Career which provides important steps on how to access the multitude of careers represented that night.

Career workshops, panels and talks on various career pathways gave guests the opportunity to dig in deeper to topics of interest.

“Don’t give up,” always “see above the horizon” and “the hardest thing is showing up” were some gems of advice shared by Yobel Mengistu at the Designing a Future in STEAM panel. He is a Communications Associate Manager at Starbucks and is a Thomas Jefferson High School alumnus.

On the same panel, Dr. Epiphany Johnson, Veronica Pena Corona and Quadir Williams, another alumni from Todd Beamer also shared their stories. Johnson is a family medicine resident physician and said that her experiences growing up inspired her to pursue the career.

“My brother didn’t really get the care that he needed for his asthma when he was little, and that made me think there aren’t people who look like me giving my brother care,” Johnson said. She is Black and Samoan and said she wondered if they would have gotten better care if there was “somebody to speak up for us.”

Parent Lynn Templeman attended and said she and her family enjoyed the event, although they didn’t get to see everything with so many offerings. A highlight for her was brought by the huge turnout, which gave her the opportunity to reconnect with friends — “something that is hard to do in this digital age.”

Some exhibits fused engineering and art literally, like these sculptures made from old mechanical parts. Photos by Keelin Everly-Lang

Another new feature this year included the chance to see a drone competition by the Todd Beamer Junior Air Force ROTC program.

Panelists included Quadir Williams, Veronica Pena Corona, Yobel Mengistu and Dr. Epiphany Johnson to speak about their careers. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror

Students and instructors from the Allied Academy Healthcare Services program through Virginia Mason Franciscan Health showed students how to do CPR. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror

A sixth-grader from the Federal Way Public Academy shares an enthusiastic and detailed explanation of current stem cell innovation research with a guest at the STEAM event.