Volunteering With Hacklab

Volunteering With Hacklab

webeditor

Oct, 13

0

In less than a month of joining Developers In Vogue, Hilda is already teaching children how code:

“A summer camp environment may allow children to learn new skills in a safe and nurturing environment. This is exactly what Hacklab Junior Makers Summer Camp seeks to achieve.                      My first day at the camp was very exciting and educative. Here I was doing something I have               never done before. Working with kids and teaching them.

It was a funny experience for me. I was interested and enthusiastic to teach the kids. It was a practical summer camp and so for our first day we had to teach the kids about building electrical circuits and making buzzers. I had the opportunity of working with the organizers of the program and the female trainer who was very friendly and nice. She taught me a lot about using the science set and LittleBits  for programming. I started off by my arranging tables and chairs after which we began the registration process. We registered about 4 kids for the first day. A little while later we gave them an orientation about the camp. The kids were very excited to kick start the two weeks camp.

After the orientation, we gave them the science set and LittleBits Boxes. Their first task was to read the manual and create the circuit and buzzers on their own based on what they saw in the manual. They did a good job attempting what they had never done before. I was happy to see these kids do something I never had the opportunity of doing – putting what they learnt in Integrated Science into practical use without our help. We needed to put their attempts into perfection, so we gave them guidance. I had the opportunity of teaching one young boy about setting up a simple electrical circuits with wires, resistors, batteries and a switch. This was something I had never done before. I became a teacher for the first time and I had to put what I learnt in my physics class to practical use.

With the help of the Manual, I taught this smart child about building a simple circuit.   Teaching him was fun. He asked a lot of questions and gave suggestions about building the circuit just by looking at the manual. This experience taught me that teaching young children about electrical circuit is a rewarding and important activity. Teaching them well will allow them to have a good knowledge base from which to progress with their scientific understanding. Using simple analogies, and by reinforcing the basics, you will be able to help children learn about the simple electrical circuit, and give them a sound theoretical grounding. Using this, they will be able to progress with their studies and deal later with more complex scientific concepts.

I had to explain to him that there must be a complete circuit. We made sure that both ends of the battery were connected for electrons to flow. We also identified electrical components and their uses. One step at a time we completed our simple electrical circuit. He was my champ for the day. I was happy to see a smile on his face. We completed the activity for the day by summarizing whatever he had learnt on paper with circuit diagrams. I am proud to say that all the kids had the basic theory of electricity understood and our ready to move on to more complex devices and projects and they did this by learning through playing.

Finally, all the kids answered questions about their experience for the day. First day on summer camp was very interesting. I can’t wait for the other days to come.

Thanks to Developer in Vogue and Hacklab for this amazing opportunity.

  I AM A DEVELOPER IN VOGUE!”

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