Archive: Around Town

Last week Lansing Elementary School was transformed into a laboratory as kids entering first through sixth grades spent a week at Camp Invention.  The camp is a national program from the not-for-profit Invent Now organization, which is associated with the National Inventors Hall of Fame in the Invent Now museum in Akron, Ohio.  Six Lansing teachers offer the program locally with the help of high school aged counselors and middle-school aged volunteers.  "The kids are using their imagination and junk to create all sorts of useful inventions, and solving problems," says camp director Cathy Moseley.  "My favorite part is watching the kids do that and talk about what they see in their creations."


Kids rotate each day between four modules outlined in a detailed syllabus.  3rd Grade teacher Lisa Peter teaches 'I Can Invent!', 6th Grade teacher Stacie Kropp leads 'Wild Blue Y'Under', 8th Grade teacher Ashley Hughes teaches 'Solve It: The Missing Inventor's Log,' and 4th Grade teacher Ginny Reitano leads 'Tape Me To Your Leader.'

Reitano's kids spent the week creating command centers that they can use to contact alien inventors from other worlds.  The children explored engineering principals as they discussed how cards could be used to make stronger structures, and how cones and domes add strength to a structure.  By Friday the kids were building space gear to prepare for a visit from aliens (played by come of the counselors), when they got to learn about their worlds.  "The aliens are coming to visit today," Reitano said Friday.  "They'll answer questions.  It's great fun watching them create and come up with a great idea."

Reitano says this is her first year, but she would love to come back.  "My favorite part of it has got to be watching the creativity flow, and their enthusiasm," she says.

That is a theme that is echoed by all the teachers, who get hooked on the camp.  In Lisa Peter's module kids bring some kind of gadget to take apart, and they use the pieces to create a new invention of their own.  They have an inventor's log," Peter says.  "They have to come up with problems or issues that bug them, or some kind of chore that no one in their family likes to do.  Then they brain-storm solutions to get rid of, or alleviate those problems.  They pick one of the solutions, and then they draw what the invention would look like.  They name it, come up with a company logo, and a faux patent application where they explain their idea and who would benefit from their invention."


Peter says she begins each session discussing something about invention or inventors.  "They've learned how velcro came to be, and how it came to be named," she says.  "They learn some of the history behind some of the inventions that we use.  They learn about how inventions can start with a brand name, and how they become generic like Kleenex, Aspirin, and Escalator.  That can be problematic for the inventor, because he loses the patent."

But she says that the kids' passion is the hands-on experience of taking something apart and creating something new.  "They tolerate me discussing the rest of it, but this is where their passion lies," she says.  "This is my favorite module.  I always tell Cathy I will be glad to come back if I can do this module. I love it."

In Kropp's 'Wild Blue Y'Under,' the kids are challenged to build vehicles to use to transport important documents.  They build all kinds of transportation that can fly, dive deep into the ocean, or travel along roads, exploring concepts of physics such as lift, friction, and buoyancy.  By Friday they were testing their cars on a track in the elementary school hallway.

In another room young detectives were busy searching for clues to find out who had stolen Dr. June Clever's Inventor's Log.  Ashley Hughes guided them in crime scene investigation techniques such as analyzing footprints, examining fingerprints, and teeth impressions, then used the clues to solve the crime at the end of the week.


You can't help noticing as you wander around the school is the excitement and bustle.  Kids were truly engaged by the challenges at the camp with its hands-on approach.  Even the recess period was a time of invention.  While half the campers eat lunch the other half go to Assistant Director Marilyn Farmer's Amazing Games, where they play games and then invent new ways to improve on them.  " We work on cooperative games, teamwork and strategies," Farmer says.  "Then we talk about how to modify a game to make it better or make it different.  They are relay races or challenges, and they're all a lot of fun."

This is Farmer's 6th year working at the camp, and she keeps coming back for more.  "I love watching the kids and seeing how many are divergent thinkers who come up with really incredible ideas," she says.  "It's just so much fun to watch them experiment and explore and create and discover on their own.  You learn about the kids, but you're always learning yourself.  I love the expression, 'The mind is like an umbrella -- it works better when it's open.'  You're always learning things, and little kids see things so often that, as adults, they go over our heads."


Counselors this year included high school students Anna Calhoun, Rachel Bayer, Chelsea Wiedman, Brandon Hammond, and Lindsay Oltz, and middle school student volunteers were Ian Chan, Erica Harpur, Kyle Vanderpool, Chantal Hammond.

Farmer says that she sees the benefit of the camp in the classroom during the school year.  "Kids are more willing to take risks," she says.  "They'll make guesses.  I think it does help."

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