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Chaney STEM kids get inventive at summer camp
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Chaney students in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics program participate in a summer-enrichment program at the school. In an exercise Wednesday, students looked for shapes in photographs of clouds.
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
Seventh-grader Silas Elder has an idea for a great invention.
He can’t say it out loud, but he’ll whisper it in your ear.
Silas, 12, a student at the Chaney Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics program, is a participant in Inventucation, a summer-enrichment program at the school. The program is from the National Museum of Education.
A summer-enrichment program also runs at Chaney this week for the visual and performing arts students. About 80 students are participating in both programs.
Students in Inventucation practice critical and creative thinking to come up with inventions.
Nick Frankovits, museum executive director, said the program teaches students concepts and gets them to think differently to try to invent a device to solve a problem. “We’ve had about 80 student inventions that have made it to market,” he said.
Silas was in a classroom Wednesday where students were given photographs of clouds and asked to look for objects in them.
“It’s a bat with a bear’s head,” he said. “I think this over here looks kind of like a saddle.”
The students look for patterns in preparation of getting them to think about inventions, said Pam Lubich, Chaney STEM coordinator.
Each student gets an inventor’s log to jot down ideas and formulate their thoughts.
They were all blank Wednesday, but Silas’s eyes light up when he talks about his plans. He doesn’t want other people to know about it yet for fear someone else will use the idea.
Sixth-grader Jaylene Vargas, 11, found a bunny and a dog in her cloud photo, and Leopoldo Prieto, 11, and in sixth grade, outlined a dolphin and mountains in his cloud formation.
The enrichment programs run through this week, concluding with a trip Friday to the Great Lakes Science Center for STEM students and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for those in VPA.