Teamwork and technology Grade 8 CCRSB students test creativity during tech workshop
truro, N.S.
Students recently challenged their creative abilities at Maker Tech 2017.
Selected Grade 8 students from 21 Chignecto-Central region schools filled the Best Western Glengarry conference room to learn about technology.
“We’re using electronics to represent Canadian identity,” said Sarah Kittilsen a Central Colchester junior high school student.
The theme of the event was Canada 150. After spending the morning learning about electronics, students were challenged to make their own projects incorporating the theme.
Each table was covered in building materials as students worked away, barely taking their eyes off their creations.
“You place a nickel on the wires, then lay copper tape on the paper and if you connect the light bulbs right, it lights up,” said Maren Whynot, a Riverside Education Centre student.
Whynot and her group members Logan Miles and Ryan Keefe used copper and light bulbs to make a Canada 150 sign, recording a time-lapse video of the process.
Renae Cutler, Breanna Young and Chloe Faulkner, West Colchester Consolidated School students, with a similar circuit and decorations, created a Canada flag.
“We learned how to make the board this morning,” Cutler said. “Now we’re brainstorming what we can add next.”
Calen Shaw, Tessa Macintosh and Alyssa Cosh from Bible Hill Junior High and Luc Young, Oakley MacDonald and Calvin Denny from East Pictou Middle School, teamed up to recreate a model of Justin Trudeau.
The girls from BHJH created a stand to resemble Trudeau’s upper body, placing a makeshift suit and tie over top.
Then the boys from EPMS traced Trudeau’s face to add to the stand and created a circuit board.
“We’re not sure if we can use the board on our project yet, but it was fun to make,” said Young.
Louise Haycocks, CCRSB technology integration consultant, co-ordinated the event. She said the students were given little instruction on the projects but they were all succeeding.
“The less instruction you give them, the more they can learn themselves,” she said. “We’re trying to teach them to work through their failures because that gives them so much more pride to say ‘I did this myself.’”
The event was intended to use curriculum learning and in hands-on activities, said Haycocks.
“There is so many unique categories of projects they’re putting together and it’s a great way for them to explore their creativity.”