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...Creative youngsters are donning their thinking caps and firing up their Rube Goldberg machines during Camp Invention at Darlington Lower School, a weeklong camp that started Monday for young mechanical magicians from first to sixth grade.
Darlington’s Camp Invention is part of a nationwide camp at elementary schools that focuses on creativity and discovery. It allows children not only a chance to use their imaginations but also to work together as a team — something camp director Rebekah Kinney said is probably the most difficult thing for the kids to do.
“We hope more than anything they have fun,” Kinney said. “But it allows them to think and problem-solve and to be creative.”
The camp focuses on four different modules, where 74 campers from around the region can learn about topics ranging from physics and roller coasters to complex machinery.
Though the camp allows for moments of learning, teachers and camp counselors like Grover Brow
Jackson Horton blows air through a straw Monday to push a ball during Camp Invention. (Ryan Smith / RN-T) |
n — a recent Darlington graduate headed off to the University of Georgia in the fall — take a hands-off approach.
“I’m supposed to stand back and let the kids learn from what they’re doing,” Brown said. “I can help them learn from their mistakes if they need me.”
Brown was surprised by how a lesson about roller coasters could turn into a physics lesson.
“They have to learn that (the roller coaster) has to go down before it can go up,” Brown said. “So they’re learning some Newtonian physics, which is impressive for a second-grader.”
Activities have included learning how to survive on a foreboding, faraway pretend planet called “Zak” with nothing but “wreckage” from their spaceship that amounted to recyclables brought from home.
Other campers were hard at work, a room away, trying to build a Rube Goldberg machine that would pop a water balloon.
Teammates Chase Ladwig and Ivy Brandon, 10-year-olds from Cartersville, were busy taking apart a DVD player and a speaker to use in their machine.
“Taking this stuff apart has been the most fun for me so far,” Chase said.
For counselors working the camp, it has also been an educational experience, especially for 17-year-old Darlington student Bess Kelley.
“I feel like I’ve learned a whole lot more about science,” Bess said. “Especially about the computer. Just seeing what was inside was interesting, because I’ve never opened up a computer before.”
Kinney said that the camp is the first such camp in the Northwest Georgia region, and she hopes that Camp Invention’s 74 alums will return next year along with a whole lot more kids.
Click here for video coverage of the camp.
