If you have been following my blog for over a year now you may remember when I ran a session last year as part of the Urban League Summer Camp. Well, it's that time of year again! The camp is set up a bit differently this year, in that I am only running one week of sessions, which also means that I get the entire group (whereas last week I had half the group, and for two weeks). Also, the other session has changed this year from GIS to Nano Bio Technology. There is a lot more participation this year, seeing as how my number of participating students has practically tripled(!). Other aspects of the camp have stayed the same: the kids start the day in a leadership workshop, then have lunch at Gracie's, and then are with me for 2 hours before heading back out. Oh, but there is one other noticeable difference versus last year: the kids seem to be really into it this year!
For our first day, I planned basically to do introductions of each other and an introduction to Imaging Science - but I wanted to find a way to somehow combine the two and do something more relevant than a normal icebreaker activity. After a little brainstorming in the morning with Bob and Joe, we decided to follow our usual first day routine of letting the kids loose with video cameras, but this time with a different purpose. Whereas last year I asked the kids to find examples of Imaging Science all across campus (which was not so exciting), this year Joe suggested we tell the kids to go out and find as many people across campus as possible and as them what they think Imaging Science is - so, like how Leno does his Jaywalking bit. They would get tallied for how many people they asked, but they had to get a minimum of 10 and no more than two of those were supposed to be inside the building. Also, they were supposed to start their video by each introducing themselves: their name, what grade they're going into, and at what school. They had 45 minutes to get as much footage as possible, and like last year we weren't going to show them how to use the cameras (but we would be available to help if they needed us). Aaaaand, GO!
Surprisingly, the kids went right off and started getting video, and we were never asked for help other than one anomaly where the camera froze and was totally unresponsive. Most of the groups finished up early, so I encouraged them to go out and ask more people. One team heard that going up to the 7th floor of Eastman would be an automatic win, so sure enough they ran off to try it. 1:30 came around and I started processing the videos while the kids had a little down time, and within a few minutes (and a few additional minutes of having to wait for one team whose cameraperson apparently was in the bathroom for quite some time - minus 100 points!) the videos were ready for viewing.
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| A few of the teams caught intern Olivia (who should have had a better answer, COME ON!) |
An esteemed panel of myself, Joe, Bob, and Michelle (from the K-12 office) were to serve as judges. I had the role of tallying the number of people and awarding bonus points; Joe had a buzzer to BZZZZZ bad answers from people; Bob had a call bell to DING DING! good answers; and Michelle was in charge of pictures. Some highlights from the videos include answers from some notables across campus (which the kids had no idea were such important people), asking someone while they were in the bathroom, one of the answers actually mentioning the platypus, and of course visiting the President's office (which, although they didn't get to interview Dr. Destler himself, they did get a very nice answer from one of his staff assistants). We had told the students that they should introduce themselves and explain that they were part of this program, and we were very pleased to see that they did actually remember to do this. The kids were all extremely polite, and also thanked people for answering and sometimes even gave them handshakes. Although even despite this, there were still some people who had very adverse reactions to being asked "What is Imaging Science?" and/or were pretty upset to have been recorded; so for that reason I won't be posting any of the clips on here. (sad trombone)
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| The competition was FIERCE but as you can see, even with all the random bonuses and deductions (and miscalculations for Team 3), there was a clear winner. |
Overall the experience went way better than I was possibly hoping for. The kids had a lot of fun making and watching the videos, and the clips were actually very educational, too. By having the buzzes and dings to indicate good and bad answers, the kids had a chance to learn what Imaging Science really is and what a lot of the misconceptions are. (They also learned that a lot of people simply don't know and won't even try to guess.) The kids also all learned how to use the video cameras (and did a good job, too!) and got to know their way around campus a bit more. And on top of all of these awesome things, we already have some really great material for their presentation on Friday! Originally we were going to reward the winners with Ben & Jerry's coupons, but we ended up being so impressed with ALL of the videos that we're going to give all the kids ice cream tomorrow. Oh boy!
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