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It’s mid-August, and outside, amid the rides, food stands, and 4H animal pens, the air is blowing hot like a hair dryer, but inside this trailer, known as the Mobile Maker Lab, the air is cool. Lowe spent 18 years as an elementary school educator in Elgin, a small-town northeast of La Grande. Now, she works as the Mobile Maker Lab Program Manager for the Greater Oregon STEM Hub—also known as GO STEM—which operates this travelling STEM outreach trailer, based out of Eastern Oregon University. GO STEM is one of thirteen STEM Hubs across the state, which collectively exist to give every Oregon student equitable access to science, technology, engineering, and math education. The word “greater” distinguishes the unique role of GO STEM, which covers a sprawling 38,000 square miles across seven rural Eastern Oregon counties. 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A clump of young kids accompanied by teen chaperones, all in matching highlighter yellow t-shirts, mix and mingle as they wait their turn to enter, where they’ll find not only the TOPO Box, but a plasma ball that simulates lightning, a wall of magnets where they can construct bridges and slides, and other interactive hands-on displays. “Get kids passionate about something, and you can get them rolling to find their passion,” Boothby says.",[],{"_key":256,"_type":8,"asset":33,"children":257,"markDefs":262,"style":21},"073ec1e20718",[258],{"_key":259,"_type":12,"marks":260,"text":261},"d01f30513bda",[],"In the weeks before coming to these fairgrounds, the Mobile Maker Lab Program spent time at a diverse array of community events, including two other county fairs and the Woodlands & Watersheds Festival near Wallowa Lake. The trailer will finish the season at the Pendleton Roundup and Oregon Science Teacher Association Conference in Pendleton. This children’s museum exhibit on wheels is their iconic outreach vehicle, and it’s only one of the many ways GO STEM brings learning to students and expands educators’ opportunities. During the school year, GO STEM educators hit the road in a hatchback loaded with materials, equipment, and lesson plans to join teachers in classrooms and expand what students can learn. They also mobilize at libraries to serve home school students and anywhere they can reach kindergarteners through high schoolers. 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He approached North Powder High School with an offer: ",{"_key":287,"_type":12,"marks":288,"text":290},"de177c82928e",[289],"em","if I pay for the building supplies, will your Geometry in Construction students design and build a mobile classroom? ",{"_key":292,"_type":12,"marks":293,"text":294},"f5ec8a617af0",[],"The teacher and students took up the offer. Students collectively conceptualized, used AutoCAD to design, and then built a fully renewable-energy powered classroom with solar panels, energy storage, HVAC, and satellite internet connectivity. In its first iteration, it became a portable off-grid learning environment. This past winter, after a few years of trials, GO STEM enlisted a new group of CTE students at Cove High School to reimagine the trailer as a traveling interactive science exhibit.",[],{"_key":297,"_type":8,"asset":33,"children":298,"markDefs":303,"style":21},"88a20c5f4123",[299],{"_key":300,"_type":12,"marks":301,"text":302},"14dfa2f7d91e",[],"While the sun scorches the air outside, we delight in the cool air conditioning inside. I watch a high schooler, who’s taken over from the kindergartener, begin sculpting a sand mountain in the TOPO Box. He’s supposed to be chaperoning the younger kids, but he becomes completely consumed and I notice he’s started to sculpt a small lake into the top of his mountain. 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