By: Kate Pearce
Teaching and biking. They’re the two main components of our trip, and normally one of them dominates a day. Today was an exciting exception during which we taught in the morning and then biked out in the afternoon. It was long and tiring but lots of fun.
In the morning, we started our day in an amazing way with Sherry’s homemade pancake breakfast at the Harmony House Bed & Breakfast. She was an incredible host, and we so enjoyed staying in her beautiful B&B. Plus, the special breakfasts were definitely an upgrade from the norm. Also, two other cross country cyclists were staying with Sherry and ate breakfast with us. In a crazy coincidence, Annie and Bethany actually know their close friend who is a frisbee-playing grad student at MIT! It was a pretty crazy cool coincidence. Small world.
We headed to the Challenger Learning Center of Kentucky for Day 2 of our Learning Festival. The students were very focused and great to teach. Additionally, the members of the Challenger team of Tom, Charles, and Jamie (among others) were incredibly helpful.
The Learning Festival was structured such that students did two 2 hour workshops per day, with all 4 workshops running simultaneously. Students got to do all of the workshops if they attended both days.
Annie and I taught our Scratch from Scratch workshop, an introductory computer science lesson using the Scratch language developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group out of MIT’s Media Lab. Scratch is a great program, and kids of all ages and levels of experience can instantly make cool stuff.
We opened our workshop by asking if students had heard of computer science/coding/programming. Not all of them had, so we were excited to be their introduction. Annie and I mentioned some of the cool applications of CS and introduced the basic features of Scratch. Then came the fun part. We let the kids loose to play around with Scratch on their own. They chose tutorials that interested them and dove in.
It can be intimidating to be introduced to an entirely new topic without much explanation. But, we did this on purpose to show kids just how much they could figure out for themselves through exploration. After about 25 minutes of work time with us circulating around to help, we regrouped. Trying to highlight some widely applicable programming concepts that can be used in Scratch, we showed the students the “repeat” block (like a for loop) and the “if/then” block as well as all sorts of other loops, triggers, and controls.
Also, we played a fun game that someone had posted in the online Scratch community to showcase the potential of what you can make. Some more work time ensued, and students had such creative visions! I was blown away by the enthusiasm and imagination. Annie and I rotated around, trying to help kids channel their ideas into functioning animations and games.
I loved seeing how some kids would start with a tutorial and then branch out on their own. There are instructions for creating a simple Pong game with a ball and a thin paddle, for instance. One creative student decided to use the squirrel head sprite and a hand drawn acorn as the “ball” and “paddle.”
We saw handmade games entirely from Scratch as well as creative stories with silly characters that talked and made sound. Regardless of the project, it was great to see the kids getting into playing with Scratch. We had students share to see what others made, and Annie showed off a funny singing plant animation that she’d constructed. All in all, it was a fun time seeing what kids made and the newfound enthusiasm that some of them had for programming.
The other workshops also went well. For Alex and Delia’s Physics of Light & Photography workshop, they added lots of cool new demos. Students of Matt and Lisa’s electronics workshop built pretty awesome robots. On an exciting note, some students finally succeeded in the egg drop challenge that Bethany ran in the “3, 2, 1: Build!” workshop. It was a busy teaching day, and we were really glad that we had the opportunity to teach in Hazard.
And we were in the local news! Check out the article here: http://hazardhappenings.com/spokes-america-2018-mit-harvard-challenger-learning-center-of-kentucky/.
Switching gears (can’t resist a pun), we then packed up our Learning Festival and headed back to load the van and prep for biking. A tough ride awaited us. Hazard locals had warned that the road to Buckhorn is windy and hilly- they were certainly not kidding. At around 33 miles and 3,400 ft of elevation gain, the ride was “short” but brutal. Hill after hill. Every time we hit one, I thought to myself “oh I’m going to end up walking my bike on this one” but we persevered and ended up pedaling up them all! It was hot. An electronic sign we passed said 93 degrees!
In terms of dogs, Group 1 (me, Matt, Delia) didn’t have many problems, but Group 2 hit some scary ones. The useful dog horns came in handy again. While there was more than enough horrific uphill, we also had some fun windy downhills. On multiple occasions we broke the speed limit going into the downhill curves. Don’t worry parents- not by much, safety first!
To say the least, we were excited when we reached the house in Buckhorn that we were staying at. Spacious and with a full kitchen, we were able to cook dinner(s). Lisa, a great “van mom,” had food ready for us when we rolled in! Rice and lentils were quickly consumed as we also snacked on fruit, sweet potatoes, and other stuff. It’s become a joke on the team how much Greek yogurt I eat. In all honesty, I also ate some of that tonight of course. Later, Lisa and I drove to the only nearby store, a small country roadside stop, and bought some milk and other random things. Upon our return, I made a Family Size box of mac and cheese for the team.
After our long and busy day, we hung out in the house and rested up for the next day. Let the Kentucky riding continue! And hopefully we only meet friendly dogs...
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