Faith, art, science

By Jim Davis - Florida Catholic

FORT LAUDERDALE | Art, games, plants, computers, VR images: Dazzling variety bombarded students in a few hours at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.

At a Catholic school? What's the connection?

Senior student Mary Girgis had the answer. 

“Our faith is in every aspect of life,” she said during the Sister John Norton STEAMS Competition Jan. 25, 2025, at the school. “Faith is supposed to be acted out.”

The annual event drew 300 students from 12 schools – from St. Anthony and Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Fort Lauderdale, to St. David and St. Bonaventure in Davie, to St. Lawrence and St. Rose of Lima in Miami-Dade.

Included were math competition and science trivia, plus speed quizzes on parts of the human body, powered by Aquinas’s Anatomage display table. VR headsets demonstrated the power of computers to get inside scientific lessons.

Senior student Matias Lauria said his first use – dissecting a virtual pig – took him off guard initially.

“I was surprised and lost at first,” Lauria said. “But also interested. It was a great experience.”

This year's STEAMS competition marked the 54th annual interschool event named for the late religious sister who served St. Thomas Aquinas School for three decades until 1996.

The first version was an event called Math Field Day, later expanding to the whole STEAM spectrum of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.

In the Aquinas robotics lab, young men pieced together rough-looking devices, then placed them on the floor. There, they guided the machines to pick up objects and move them.

Senior student Philip Brown said the exercise offered more lessons than mere mechanics. He noted that the teams work with each other as much as against each other – a practice called “coopertition.”

“Teamwork is central to ethics,” Brown said. “We’re making an ethical future with good Catholic social teaching.”

Some participants also looked in on the school’s Fresh STArt garden. Eleventh grader Chayce Israel showed how to plant seeds for flowers and vegetables. The 20 visitors filled bags with basil, thyme and other herbs. They were also given small pots with seeds for zinnias, black-eyed Susans and the like.

Israel said she volunteered for the garden project. “It’s part of caring for God’s creation,” she said. “And you get to meet a ton of people.”

Math, the original entry of STEAM Day, again had its enthusiasts on Jan. 25. In two rooms, teams took quizzes written by Mu Alpha Theta, the school’s math honor society.

The appeal? A sense of accomplishment, according to eleventh grader Tracy Alexander. “You do it and do it until you get it. It’s rational. There’s a reason behind it.”

Nor was the spiritual side of Catholic education neglected. A team from each school bent over pictures, creating pictures of doves, space, test tubes and healthy fields and forests.

First place for art went to St. Rose of Lima, which produced a picture of a human receiving the world from a tiny robot.  Second place picture, from St. Bonaventure, had industry pouring water onto the world. Third place, from St. Mark the Evangelist in Southwest Ranches, showed nature coexisting with urban life.

In another classroom, teams of students downloaded pictures and music, crafted brief prayers and essays, and assembled presentations. Their focus was the late Carlo Acutis, scheduled to be canonized April 25.

Acutis, a computer programmer who died in 2006 at the age of 15, is already being called the “first millennial saint” and the “patron saint of the internet.” A small shrine in the classroom, with candles and his picture, furnished inspiration.

Liv Gomez, an eighth grader at St. Mark, said the project was to highlight Acutis’ example as a Catholic. “Sometimes we stray, but as pilgrims we should be following Jesus. We should wake up every morning with that mindset.”

The many facets have led school officials to call it STEAM Squared, with the “S” as a double initial for science and spirituality. The newest emphasis is on broader options, said Jane Spanich, STEAMS director at Aquinas.

“We’re providing students with multiple opportunities,” said Spanich, herself educated in theology as well as STEAMS. “They don’t have to choose to be just doctors or artists or whatever. They can have multiple identities.

“After all, we have souls, and our souls go beyond time and space. And Christ knows our souls.”