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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie De La Garza Emma Patterson watches a pickle glow with electrical current during the Summer Math, Science and Reading Initiative for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs Boys and Girls Club on the program’s last day, July 25. |
By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — Listening to the participants of an educational summer program through the Aroostook Band of Micmacs Boys and Girls Club talk about their experiences was kind of like listening to a bunch of kids describing their favorite action movie — excitedly falling over each other’s words in an effort to share all the cool things that happened at once.
For instance, three kids responded almost simultaneously to the questions as to whether dissecting a fetal pig was yucky or interesting.
“It was interesting!” said Joshua Kawalansky;
“It was both!” said Julia Kawalansky;
“Its intestines were green!” said Emma Patterson.
The three youths were among the 20 Micmac children participating in the two-week long math, science and reading initiative aimed at strengthening those very skills, a program that was funded by the Frederika Gilroy Memorial Trust for Native American Education.
Charged with finding engaging material for youths ranging from ages 5 to 13 was teacher Kevin Green.
Green found new experiments and activities that he hoped would grab his students’ attention — and they did.
“It was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be,” said Mishun Morey. “I thought it was going to be boring, and it wasn’t.”
There were mock crime scene investigations, biology dissections like a fetal pig and even a goat brain, exploring a whole new world through a microscope view, learning what the chemical make up of different foods are, how to extract strawberry DNA, and even how to make pickles glow.
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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie De La Garza Participating in the Summer Math, Science and Reading Initiative for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs Boys and Girls Club were, from left, front row: Bianca Clair, Emma Patterson and Breana Peter-Paul. Middle row: Kiara Commadore, Mishun Morey, Hali Fieler and BobbiJo Rakes. Back row: Bryant Peter-Paul, Julia Kawalansky, Joshua Kawalansky and Instructor Kevin Green. |
Josh Kawalansky explained that the salt in the pickle is what makes it glow when an electrical current is applied to the food, and with a huge grin on his face, he also explained how a formerly electrified pickle tastes.
“If you don’t have it plugged in too long, it tasted like a regular pickle … but if you have it plugged in too long, it doesn’t taste like a pickle,” he said.
Julia Kawalansky said the summer program helped her learn that math and science and reading is fun “because there’s new things we can do,” she said, and Patterson agreed with her.
“It’s exciting, and there’s new things that we learned and we might want to be scientists when we grow up,” Patterson said.
While the children clearly had memorable experiences through the educational summer program, Green explained that learning over the summer helps them hold on to the things they’ve learned last year in school — which will help them when they start their classes this school year.
“Over summer vacation, kids lose a lot of what they learned,” he said. “Learning is a year-long process, it’s not just ‘do it now, and know it forever’ — you have to keep learning or you’ll forget it.”
While there was a lot of learning, “it’s not like you sit at a desk and do work,” Julia said, “it’s all hands on.”
Even when the group did sit down at desks, it was to figure out some pretty cool stuff — like how much they’d weigh if they landed on Mars.
Director of Education for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs Nichole Francis said that offering programs like the two-week educational experience helps prepare students for the rigors of college preparatory classes like AP courses in high school, exposes students to role models and careers in math and science and encourage good students to become excellent ones — in addition to many other positives.
“For many years the Aroostook Band of Micmacs Boys and Girls club has tried to offer math, science and reading programs to our youth in the summer months as a way to expose them and peak their interest in high-yield learning and hands-on opportunities,” she explained.
Not only did students have a chance to participate in the interactive math and science activities, they also experienced a reading program that placed them eligible to earn gift certificates for reading books and completing written reports that describe their favorite parts of their readings.
One thing’s for sure — participating students will have lots of science project ideas when they return to school this fall and a different perspective on their studies.
