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The 11-year-old Lewiston boy can recount — in breathless detail — what he’s done every day since:
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Natalia VanderZanden, 7, right, assembles blender parts into an invention as Aspen Halbakken, 8, creates game pieces during a class Thursday at Winona State University. The Winona girls were learning about the fundamentals of physics during Camp Invention, a week-long camp for area elementary kids.
(Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News) |
“On day one, we had to build our own spaceship. On day two, we had to make a shelter.”
On subsequent days, Brown and his comrades foraged for food, avoided volcanoes and fought armed groups of hostile Zakonians.
Brown was one of 41 local elementary students who participated in the crash landing exercise and other science lessons at Camp Invention this week at Winona State University. Administered by the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the weeklong educational program aims to cultivate creativity and scientific interest among grade-schoolers.
“We’re seeing a big field in science, career-wise,” said Camp Invention director Sandy Bussian. “So we want to get them started early.”
Local campers studied roller coasters and automobile safety to learn about chemistry and physics. Brown said the activities were different — and often more demanding — than his fourth-grade science classes.
“Everything at school is too easy,” he said.
Bussian said the camp is meant to stimulate an active interest in science, rather than encouraging children to memorize facts or principles. The hope, she said, is that students will pursue more specific scientific knowledge as they grow older.
“This is more of a creative side,” Bussian said. “In school, everything is more sequential.”
Idell Ann Larson, an instructor who supervised the students’ voyage to Planet Zak, said the program emphasized student involvement by developing inventions during each day’s activities. Beginning on Monday, the students organized in teams to learn cooperation, and also kept personal journals about their trip.
“It wasn’t just listening to a lecture,” Larson said. “They’re using their own imaginations to create their own universe.”
On Friday, the students gathered at WSU’s Stark Hall to present their inventions, which could be devised to serve everyday purposes. They used plastic bottles, coffee cans, duct tape and other implements to make robots, weed whackers and other inventions.
An 8-year-old boy from St. Charles made a “mesmerizing robot.” He hoped it would get his little brother to be quiet.
Twelve-year-old Jack Kauphusman of Winona used a shoebox, car speakers and plastic tubing to make a “leaf-sucker” to prevent the need to complete his least favorite chore: raking the leaves.
During Friday’s show, a classmate asked Kauphusman about the design of his invention.
“How does it suck up the leaves?” his fellow camper asked.
Kauphusman shrugged off the need to explain the intricacies of his creation.
“I don’t know,” he grinned. “It’s just a model.”
