By DENISE DICK

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

Youngstown

Armon Flores and Neshawn Cochrane, both 10, moved from activity to exhibit, checking out Oh Wow! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science and Technology.

The Stambaugh Charter Academy fourth-graders spent the morning Monday at the museum.

Wendy Thomas, Stambaugh’s dean for students in third through fifth grades, said Oh Wow! offers students the opportunity to see, hands-on, some of the concepts they’ve learned all year, particularly those in science.

Both Armon and Neshawn pointed to the facility’s wind tunnel as their favorite activity.

“My hair goes down crazy,” Neshawn said, flattening his hair to demonstrate.

The exhibit shows various wind forces.

Third-grader Melaya Dixon agreed.

“It was fun,” she said.

Fourth-grader Trinidy Klacik, 10, pointed to the catapult as her favorite Oh Wow! activity. Children launched plastic balls from catapults to see whose traveled the farthest.

Ramir Bledsoe, 9, and in third grade, preferred Magnet World.

“You can pick up all of these things with this and move them,” Ramir explained, holding a magnet to attract metal pieces scattered on a table.

Suzanne Barbati, Oh Wow! executive director, said field trips like the one Stambaugh students enjoyed Monday, are part of the museum’s mission.

“Children can experiment and explore safely,” she said. “No one is going to tell them, ‘Don’t touch that; don’t do that’ or ‘that doesn’t go with that.’”

They’re allowed to explore and learn independently through the activities which all focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Stambaugh Charter Academy is a public charter school on Donald Avenue in Youngstown.