Scholar’s Academy shares love of learning
John Brown University teacher education professors shared their love of learning with elementary and middle-school students during Scholar’s Academy last week.
The teacher education department hosted three week-long day camps last week, including STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) focused camps for both elementary and middle-school-aged children, and a poetry camp for elementary-school-aged kids.
Connie Matchell, chair of the teacher education department, explained that the camp allows education professors to keep their classroom skills sharp while sharing their love of learning.
“We want to instill our love of learning in the kids,” she said.
Several teaching students also volunteered to help with the camp, which gave them a great opportunity to get real world experience in the classroom.
This is the second year that JBU’s teacher education department has held Scholar’s Academy. This year poetry camp was added to create more areas that might interest kids, she said.
Students in the science camps spent their week doing activities such as building wind turbines, solar ovens and bridges, according to Curtis Cunningham and Kim Murie, both assistant professors of teacher education. Students did a lot of problem solving through design challenges such as making heat resistant igloos or
building bridges that were both strong and cost efficient, and talked about maker space, said Murie, who worked with middleschool-aged kids.
Students in poetry camp read both serious and funny poems, then practiced writing their own poetry, inspired by nature walks around campus, watercolor painting and other handson activities, according to Professor Adria Trombley. They also learned to use their five senses to really perceive and then describe the world around them.
“Writers can get inspiration from anywhere,” Trombley said.
Spending time on campus also gave students an opportunity to learn about the different places on campus and talk about what college life is like, Trombley said.
Violet Swearingen, 10, attended the poetry camp and said she especially liked writing nature poems. She read a poem about her favorite color, sky blue, which described what the color felt like, tasted like, smelled like, sounded like and looked like.
Swearingen said she has always liked reading, writing and poetry, but the camp has helped cement her love of poetry and taught her how to describe the world in more detail.
“I learned a lot of new words I can use in poetry instead of plain words,” she said. “When you take time to study one thing, you notice so many things you didn’t notice before.”