This summer, local elementary and middle school students are being educated in a variety of unique subjects not normally taught during the school year, ranging from robotics and ceramics to cartooning and digital photography.
The Kyrene School District is giving kids hands-on exposure to the future of science, math, exercise and more during the Summer Academy program offered at Kyrene de la Paloma Elementary School.
The first session of the program began June 6 and ended July 1.
Students in the Lego Robotics course experienced the feeling of being a NASA scientist working on a moon rover. Kids constructed and programmed robots using software provided by the Community Education Department. The students enthusiastically worked with the small-scale “rovers” to complete tasks, for example, programming the robots to cover the most surface area of a table-top in 90 seconds.
Kelly Nafziger, who teaches the Lego Robotics course, said the students have no problem jumping on the computer to program the miniature rovers.
“The kids are having a complete blast,” she said. “The middle school kids are actually helping me out – they’ve been my teachers.”
Nafziger is a teacher at Paloma, and has taught the summer academy courses during summers past. This is the first year the Lego Robotics course was offered.
“There’s probably not another district offering classes like these,” Nafziger said. “We offer much more diverse classes; it’s more enriching.”
Depending on whether the students are in middle or elementary school, they complete specific tasks using the software to program the robots.
“This class is basically designed to teach the engineering strategies. So they plan, test, retest and retest some more,” Nafziger said. “The middle school students’ second challenge is to make the moon buggy travel a specific path of twists and turns, pick up rocks and go back.”
Though the classes only last an hour each day, the kids get deeply involved, constructing large paths for the robots to follow.
“Because it’s only an hour, I’ve done a lot of modifying,” she said. “But that’s what science is all about.”
She said the biggest challenge is getting the kids to understand you need to make only one change at a time to the program. The students learn quickly that making more than one change at a time can cause mass confusion.
“You learn to make one miner change, and then test it,” she said. “Some of the kids would make these big long programs and it would get very confusing.”
Minkee, a student in the Lego Robotics class June 24, energetically ran around the constructed course, watching closely as his small-scale moon buggy traced the white-taped path on the classroom floor.
“We almost have it,” he said, toying with a robot he constructed with his partner. “It got so close.”
Minkee said his father is an engineer and he enjoys the Lego Robotics course because he can learn how to program electronics.
After several tries of reprogramming and testing as Thursday’s class came to an end, Minkee looked forward to Monday for another chance to complete the simulated moon task.
“I’ll get it next time,” he said…“you wait and see.”
Other classes offered include Creative Writing, Space Exploration, Dinosaur Hunters, Yoga, Discovering Ceramics and Extreme Math.
Elementary school students Ethan Dukes and Katherine Alexander were enrolled in at least four classes offered during the first session of the summer academy program, including the Lego Robotics course, Sports Mania, Ooey Gooey Science and Junior Engineers.
“The Lego class if really fun,” Katherine said. “We’re working on a maze, and a ‘rescue-the-moon-buggy’ challenge.”
Katherine’s favorite class was Sports Mania, because she gets to play “crazy games” she had never played before. Ethan said he also enjoys the class.
The second session is running July 6 through 29. The average cost for a class is $80.
“We’re doing this again in July, which we’ve never done before,” Nancy Dudenhoefer, community relations coordinator for the Kyrene Elementary School District, said.
“The kids are really having a blast in all the classes.”
