After I had to miss three days of camp last week to attend a conference in San Jose, it was so refreshing to come back to the last week of camp. The students seemed refreshed after a weekend off and our room was even more decorated after they continued to learn about days of the week, months of the year, and using adverbs of frequency. In addition to the normal curriculum for the last week of camp, we are lucky to have lots of visitors and additions to our camp this week!
Monday: Marta, the Director of CRML. Alvaro, President of Tourism for Guancaste. Janet, who works for PAUTA Science Organization in Mexico is here the whole week
Tuesday-Wednesday: Janet will work with the kids for half the time. Yesterday, she did an activity about critical thinking using blocks. Today, we did a set of 6 stations and learned to be 'scientists' while observing, creating questions and analysis of mini-science projects. My favorite was hearing them explain why condensation happens when you put ice in a metal can...
Thursday: Kevin Brown, Peace Corps Program Manager. Max Arias, MEP Regional Pedagogical Advisor and another high school director will come to visit.
Friday: we are lucky to have another volunteer from Guanacaste, Chris Starr, to help us with graduation!
Although it has been a little crazy with so many visitors, it is an incredible chance for the students to be exposed to new ideas and new people! The students I think surprised themselves with how much fun "science" could be. Their original ideas of science were words like hard, boring, for smart people, astronauts, and work in universities. I think it was a revelation to see that by engaging in critical thinking, asking questions, making predictions, and being curious about your surroundings are also integral parts of being a scientist!
I will be sure to update later this week! Only a few days until our graduation party!
- Taylor Westfall
