LOVING LEARNING: Students learn science with hands-on activities at NSU
Jun. 10—Kids need time to play outdoors, cut loose, and let their imagination run wild as they grow, which is exactly what the Northeastern State University's Innovation Discovery Education Academy has allowed them to do.
The overall theme for NSU's IDEA camp is "Makey Takey," giving students a chance to upcycle and recycle materials and transform them into something new and fresh. For instance, the 4- and 5-year olds took regular, ordinary rocks they found on the NSU campus on Wednesday and turned them into asteroids using spray paint. They also used old Frappuccino bottles from Starbucks and turned them into bubbling lava lamps using food coloring, vegetable oil, water and Alka-Seltzer tablets.
Kristin Wadley, camp instructor, said when they're young, kids need hands-on activities to reinforce what they're learning.
"When they're learning something, if you just read it and they don't do something hands-on, they won't retain anything," she said. "So the whole idea of early childhood is to give them an idea, then hand them some stuff, and let them physically do something in order to hold it in their brain, to have a little background knowledge."
The little ones made their own rockets using foam, and in the coming days they'll create and paint planets to learn more about the solar system. Plans are also in the works for them to take a virtual reality field trip to outer space.
The 6- through 8-year olds, meanwhile, had the classic egg drop project Wednesday, during which they learned a thing or two about Newton's laws of motion. They also worked with kinetic sand to build a world of their own.
"We played with kinetic sand and we made towns with the molds," Annie Moul said. "And when we were doing the egg drop, we learned about kinetic energy and potential energy. Once you drop the egg, it turns from potential energy to kinetic energy because of gravity."
Many of the kids have been cooped up over the past year due to COVID-19. Some attended school virtually, preventing them from spending much time with other kids or going outside to play. The class of students agreed that the NSU camp was better than their regular schooling, but still educational.
"This is better than school, because we get to do all fun activities," Ariel Daugherty said. "At school we have to do hard homework. [Here], I get to meet new people and they're really nice, and not mean. We get to go outside and play. Since COVID's here, we can't play outside at our school, so we've just been stuck inside."
Even for adults it can be easy to forget how to work and play with others, especially after prolonged social distancing. Instructor Chelsea Greenfield talked to the students about handling their emotions and how to treat others when a problem arises.
"Anytime there's an issue, we talk about it individually. If it's something the whole class can relate to, then we all talk about it. For instance, we had some issues with people not getting along or wanting to share things," Greenfield said. "So today we did a little meditation and talked about the different ways we can step away from the issue when we're not able to control ourselves."
After the kids went outside to play for a period of time, they ventured back indoors to enjoy the AC. As they watched Disney's "Inside Out," a movie that personifies five major emotions, the students painted their own emotions. To many it was the ending to another fun day at NSU's camp.
"We get to do fun things and we still learn things, and we get snacks. I also like it a lot today, because we get to draw about our emotions. I'm drawing all of them: happy, angry, sadness, fear and disgust. This is my third year here and I came back because I love it so much," said Emma Bates.
