Afterschool Program, Day One

Following a successful in-class program at the end of February, my first day at the Casey Design Club meeting (Thursday) was an interesting change. Being optional, rather than required, this meeting involved much more interested and enthusiastic students than before. We were able to get to know the students a little bit through the icebreaker name game, and then got to work closely with individual students as we moved into our first activity. Working in the computer lab was an interesting experience to say the least, fighting with lack of internet access on some computers, and computer games that some of the boys found intriguing in other situations. The boy with whom I worked certainly took some encouragement to settle down and focus, but once he focused in on what he was supposed to be doing, learning certainly seemed to have occurred. While it did not at first appear to be as exciting as a computer, the activity packet we brought out definitely gave the students something to do that not only was informative, but actually ended up being interesting once the students delved into it. I learned that while the computer provides a good medium through which to teach about sustainable design, it was potentially more distracting than not, and it may be better to find a different way to keep the attention of our Design Club members.

~Austin Rice~