The Westmoreland Central School District’s Zone for Imagination, Innovation and Inspiration (ZI3) is bringing families together this holiday season by merging technology and creativity with a bit of holiday fun.
The ZI3 hosted the second annual Santa’s Workshop - - its second family night of the school year - - at the Upper Elementary School during the evening of December 4. 
Last year, 26 families attended the event. This year, 62 families - - totaling more than 200 people - - participated.
Lisa Davis, ZI3 coordinator, came up with the idea to unite families in a fun way.
“We were looking to come up with something that would bring families in to work together,” Mrs. Davis said. “Knowing that the ZI3 is a space where people can create things, I thought of an elf workshop which became Santa’s workshop.”
And create they did.
Families visited four stations. At the first station in the cafeteria, each family made a sock snowman using an athletic sock, rice and an assortment of buttons and gems. The station was run by first grade teachers Mrs. Beck, Mrs. Bonomo and Mrs. Hecklau.
“We ended up using about 110 pounds of rice,” Mrs. Davis said.
The second station incorporated science. Each family colored their own Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and lit up its nose using a LED and battery. Mr. Boisen, Mr. LaFlamme and Mr. Utter assisted with the activity.
At the third station, students took a virtual-reality tour of Santa’s journey using Google Expeditions, an immersive education app that allows students and their teachers to explore the world through over 800 virtual-reality and 100 augmented-reality tours - - or take a virtual-reality field trip to just about anywhere in the world. Students wear virtual-reality viewers or “goggles.” They work by placing an iPod or smart phone with the virtual-reality tour of choice into a holder that sits inside the goggles. Once placed over your eyes, the googles project a 3-D image. As a user walks or moves his or her head, the image moves as well, creating the illusion that you really are in a particular environment.
Students got to “see” where Santa lives, including his house, reindeer and other animals that live in the North Pole. They also saw Santa’s workshop where all of his elves make his presents and learned how he uses “magic” to fit all of those presents in his sleigh to be delivered around the world.
“It was neat hearing the students’ reactions when I would switch a scene and they would see something like the Northern Lights,” Mrs. Davis, who was telling a story in the form of a rhyme during the virtual-reality tour of Santa’s journey, said. “Parents would start chuckling based on their reactions and then they wanted to take a look for themselves.”
The fourth and final station was located in the ZI3 lab and spearheaded by Mr. Darrah and Mr. Lalonde. There, families decorated more than 200 sugar cookies made by the ZI3 Club with an assortment of frosting and sprinkles. With Mr. Lalonde’s help, families were also able to use the ZI3 lab’s laser engraver to make their very own engraved snowflakes.
In addition to the several teachers who volunteered, Jr./Sr. High School National Honor Society members Elizabeth Sill, Meghan Donnelly and Abigail Hansson also helped out. Santa even made a surprise appearance!
“It definitely was a team effort, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of everyone who participated and volunteered,” Mrs. Davis said.
The ZI3’s next event, “Craft Café,” is on December 12. Participants will be making Christmas wreaths using shatterproof bulbs. The smaller workshop, for all ages, is sold out.
Davis says there will be a third, larger family night in the spring. It will have a STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Art-Math) theme. More details will be released early next year.