School program teaches
with hands-on projects
By:Mary Ellen Zangara
Families at Roosevelt School have been spending some quality time together learning and creating different projects. For the past few weeks, the students have been meeting in the school’s multi-purpose room for weekly sessions building projects with their parents.
Teachers Maureen Brown and Kelly Barton started the "Family Tools and Technology" program, and say the project’s hands-on use of tools and materials helps foster interest in science.
"I had done ‘Family Science’ with my son when he was in the fifth-grade and found that to be very worthwhile. It got him interested in science in a big way and that helped him during his high school years. He even ended up winning a science fair of over 300 students," said Ms. Brown.
Both the teachers went to the College of New Jersey for four training sessions. The project was so important to them, that they attended two Saturday sessions on their own time.
The program was open to fifth-graders, but a limit of 10-12 families per session meant a lottery was needed to select the participants.
"Family Tools and Technology is an evening program designed to involve parents directly in the process of their child’s learning," Ms. Brown said. "The program highlights the critical role that math, science, and technology play in the students’ future careers. The program strives to reach all students, but targets girls who are traditionally not exposed to tools and model building."
"Students and parents design and create working models in the areas of structure, land and water transportation and sound," she added. "They learn about and use tools to help design and build projects. Mystery guests, in a profession related to the evening’s topic answer questions while the audience guesses the profession. The families have already designed and built park ranger towers, paddleboats, and Lego racing derby cars."
Ms. Brown said the evenings started with short "warm up exercises" based on the theme of the evening’s projects.
"These warm ups serve as the way to introduce and discuss scientific, mathematical, and technological principles behind the activities as well as historical background on the theme," Ms. Brown said.
"Once the background is discussed, a challenge is issued about a real life problem that must be solved. The child and his/her parent have about an hour to design a project, modify the project and present the project to the group at the end of the evening. Students are then encouraged to write their reflections of the evening in their FT&T journal," she said.
The last session took place on the night of April 16 and the project was to design and build an African thumb piano, the small musical boxes that make sound by plucking metal tangs mounted on top. Students and their parents began with warm-up tasks, such as making a pan drum out of cardboard tubes, making a kazoo out of a cardboard tube, making of a banjo from a recycled milk container and, lastly, using their woodworking skills.
After all the warm-ups were completed, the group gathered for a discussion and instructions for their challenge. A hand-out gave them their final instructions: "Your school is having a World of Music festival. You and your family have been chosen to explore the musical heritage of Africa. Your challenge is to design and build and African thumb piano to play music."
Soon after, each student and their parent began working on their instrument. They drilled, hammered, sanded and used a saw to create the piano. When all the instruments were finished, the group gathered again to play a mini concert with them.
David Janovsky attended the program with his dad, Dave, and thought the program "was a good bonding time with my Dad."
Tina Pender learned a few things and said, "The program taught me things I never knew like an African musical instrument is made from broken umbrellas."
Student Heather Marshall enjoyed the sessions. "The projects were a lot of fun to do and they were very educational, too," she said.
Ms. Brown was very pleased with the first program, "The program was a huge success and we plan on expanding it next year. We are looking into a short session for the fourth-graders next year and the expanded version to remain intact for the fifth-grade."
Projects from the students in the Family Tools and Technology program will be on display in the Manville Public Library display cases.

