Friday was not a wonderful day for a parade weather-wise, but the kids in the STEAM Academy at Wareham Middle School had one anyway.

Instead of going outdoors, the the 80-plus seventh graders held a “Peace Parade” in the hallways of the school’s second floor as part of the first-year program’s curriculum.

Students assembled “pull toys,” or toy “floats” out of Vex robot parts used to introduce students to the world of robotics. The toys are made up of gears, a mechanism (such as a lifting device), and a motor.

As for the “peace” part, students dedicated each float to a particular figure in history known for their activism.

"Each toy had a peace activist on it,” said student Angel Hernandez. “We had either a pictures of the peace activists or what they stood for. We made parade floats (out of the toys) . . . and then we had a parade.”

In the STEAM Academy, students are taken out of their typical classroom situations and put into a program where teachers take a wide-ranging topic and teach about it from each of the science, technology and engineering, arts and humanities, and mathematics perspectives.

Figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rachel Carson, and Eleanor Roosevelt adorned the chain of floats, which were pulled up and down the halls by students as others looked on.

Technology and engineering teacher Julie Walker, one of the four behind the Academy, said they decided to combine science and engineering with celebrating important revolutionary figures.

“We combined it with the humanities aspect and made a Peace Parade,” she said.

“Everybody is assigned a mechanism,” explained STEAM student Bryan Gallagher.

“And the wheels have to actuate the toys,” added friend and fellow seventh-grader Alex DeMarco.