ROZEL — Pawnee Heights hosted its first Open House and Academic Fair recently. The gym housed science displays from seventh through 12th-grades.
Jeana Parker, Pawnee Heights High School high school science teacher, dreamed of and pulled off  the event titled “Experience Education in Action.”
Throughout the evening, active “Magic” events drew the crowd’s interest  in Jeana Parker’s science lab. Scientific displays highlighted the evening, but all the classes participated.
With a little effort, everyone in the school pitched in for the evening’s entertainment. Along with science projects from oceanography, advanced biology (with a warning about weak stomachs and dissection), chemistry, biology, and freshman physics, there were 19 displays from the junior high science students from “Lasting Flavors of Gum,” to ”Van De Graaff Electricity.”
Outside of the realm of science, every class participated in showing off their student’s work.  Several high school students from Jessica Brownlee’s band created an original composition on their iPads. In addition, several soloists from high school and several others from fifth grade performed throughout the evening.
Christy Salmans had previews of the 2012 yearbook, along with displays in her room of computer-generated projects and tons of pictures from our “Picture of the Week” contest.  
Kristin Hammeke’s FACS projects were in the gym, and 7 to 12 artwork adorned both the main and the east hallways.  The pen and ink drawings were impressive.
Lee Durler competed for hallway space with her eighth-grade Wordle efforts. Wordle is a computer program that takes what you need to say about a story and makes a word picture. Inside Mrs. Durler’s room, the last musical was playing, and various examples of activities from each of the high school English classes decorated the walls and tables.
Mark Pywell’s social sciences room displayed the combined English/history projects the juniors create yearly, as well as government games and “Xtranormal” videos.
Bob Lupfer, from industrial arts class,  demonstrated the plasma cam/cutter and many of the visitors — as well as school staff — now have a three inch metallic “PH”  they can display. In addition, outside on the football field two high school boys demonstrated projectile motion in a battle scenario.
Kindergarten through sixth-grade classrooms were open, with all types of projects on display, including movies that the students had made.
Drinks and cookies were available.
Pawnee Heights Principal/Superintendent Dan Binder greeted everyone who attended to see what has been going on here at Pawnee Heights.  
“There was quite a crowd here when the event closed at 8 p.m., and everyone seemed to be having a great evening,” Durler said.