Location: Henderson Elementary School
Soon we were joined by other
volunteers Pat and Molly, whom I knew, as well as Andy and Emma. When I found out that Emma was an archaeologist I couldn't help but refer to her as ‘Female Indiana Jones’, a
term she said is directed toward her quite frequently. Now that this was out of the way, I asked about
her work and was fascinated to hear that she frequently goes on international
expeditions to exotic places such as Peru and Mongolia. My job usually takes me to Columbus, Ohio,
but hey, who’s keeping track! While we
could have talked about archaeology all day, we were soon joined by the kids.
For our next experiment we were
going to be making 'Paper Airplanes'. I
have fond memories of this activity back in school days where paper was more
used for making planes than actual homework.
Brenna had provided us with four different designs and while I tried making
some to match the specs, I was failing at it quite badly. I could sense Joleen was getting impatient and
so I told her that I was going make one of my own designs and it would
fly. So while most were making amazing
looking paper airplanes, I was sticking to what I had learned in school all
those years ago. Brenna wanted all of us
to make at least two different designs, so we made something which resembled
her instructions.
Next was an experiment where all the kids were called to the front of
the classroom and we had a competition to check, (a) Who had made the plane
that flew the farthest within its design class and, (b) Which design was the
best in terms of flight. This testing
led to ten minutes of general mayhem amongst the kids, though all of us had a
great time. While not exactly ‘Spruce Goose’, I was pleased to see
that our design had an elegant, though short-lived, flight.
After the break our final task
was making 'Parachutes' from plastic bags.
Pat had even bought tiny G.I. Joe
plastic men to tie to the end of the parachute string. I must admit that I made a complete mess of
our parachute by using tape in places I should not have and this led to both,
Joleen and I being quite frustrated. I was
losing her, though kudos to Brenna, who came over and helped us both start on a
new one. I really admired her patient
approach because we were way behind everyone else, most of whom had already
gone to try their parachutes out on the stairs.
With her help we managed to make one and while our military man was tied
upside down, at least we had something to experiment with. Joleen and I joined the others outside and to
our delight, it worked. Joleen stood on the
stairs and dropped in down the side where I waited. The man may have been upside down, but the
parachutes gradual decent meant that he would definitely have been saved, were this a real situation.
Date: Saturday, March 9, 2013; 9:50 am-12:00 pm
This program had been my first
project with children and thus, is one that is special to me. Due to ISAT preparations at the school, we had not had this
for the last few months and as soon as an opportunity presented itself, I jumped
all over it. Brenna was the Volunteer
leader and I asked if I could bring some cookies for the kids, something which
she welcomed. I arrived at the Garfield
Red Line stop and saw her waiting for the bus.
We rode together and she mentioned that today we would be doing all
things flight, which included making 'Paper Airplanes' and 'Parachutes'; something
that I was familiar with from my MLK project at Barry Elementary. After another tricky walk on the icy
sidewalks, we arrived at the school.
 |
| The paper airplane fleet |
We did not have as big a turnout
as in the past and there were about two boys and six girls. For our icebreaker introductions, Brenna
asked everyone to say what their favorite thing was about Spring. Many said it was the warm weather that
allowed folks to go outdoors and there was even mention of Baseball. I said I liked the colors of Spring after the
dullness of Winter. Since there weren't many children, each volunteer had either one or two kids to work with and I was
paired with Joleen, who is Justin’s twin.
Justin himself, and another boy Don, were with Emma. Our first experiment was making 'Balloon Rockets' which included passing a long string through a plastic straw and tying its ends
to a door knob or something that would create nice long platform on which to
launch our rockets. Next we were to
inflate a balloon and pinch the end rather than tie a knot. The balloon would then be taped to the straw
and when the pressure was released, the thrust would propel the straw from one
end of the string to the other.
This seemed straightforward and
Joleen and I set about trying to find something on which we could tie our string,
but to no avail. So we teamed up with
others where the volunteers would hold the ends of the string and the kids
would ‘launch’ the rockets. Joleen’s first
attempt worked very well and then we started experimenting with different sizes
of balloons in terms of the inflation, the contact area between the balloon and
straw as well as releasing two balloons from either side to see how they
collided. Emma, Don and Justin were
trying different designs, including vertical launch. It was apparent that Don fancied himself as
an Engineer and was coming up with different situations and strategies. It was great to see all the children so
engaged.
 |
| This flew... |
 |
| ...And this landed |
We said goodbye to the kids,
including Alice, a tine girl who had spent most of the last 30 minutes playing
with my hair and being pesky. She may
have been clad in cute pink, but she had tons of attitude, though I did not
mind at all. I rode back on a bus with
Molly and we talked about the future of this program since Henderson is on the preliminary 'School Closing List' for Chicago. This
would be such a shame because the children there are getting much more than just a classroom education, due to the efforts of Chicago Cares and its volunteers. I had once again enjoyed being a part of this
program and though the morning had been successful, there still was some work
to be done later in the afternoon.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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