Fast Start and Summer Start 2012: Hands on means the fun is on!

Few things are as much fun as getting your hands dirty and putting to test the things that you know. This is specially true when you have learned things recently that you can put to the test immediately. This is one of the points that our Summer Start program tries to emphasize. This week it all just seemed to click. Maybe it is because the teams (team work being another emphasis area) finally came to the point of deliverables. Maybe is because of how the staff and students have started to gel so well together and have seemed to work all their kinks out. Maybe it is because after two weeks or so the emphasis we place on community has allowed the students to let go of the ideas they tend to follow in normal life at their universities. Either way, this was the week of hands on fun, community building and incredible demonstrations.

Warm-and-Fuzzies

Mim Jones continues to amaze us with her work and devotion to the student. She brought to this year's program, among many things, the idea of warm-and-fuzzies. Each student decorated a cartoon of themselves and pasted on a manila envelope. We then pasted the envelopes on our cafeteria walls for everybody to see. At any point students get to write little messages to their peers and deposit them in the envelopes. Nobody gets to read them until the end. At first we thought the students might find this silly. But after the first day of hanging them up it was a clear success. Students spend hours after dinner writing messages to each other. They then placed a self imposed curfew and made everybody clear the cafeteria after 10:00 pm so nobody would cheat and peek into their envelopes. They have been continuing their little messages all week long. The GIEU students and the rest of the staff had to get in on the fun. Even our cafeteria staff got their own warm-and-fuzzies.

Few things get Liberians excited as much as a little friendly competition. That is what we started the week with. The first year engineering students have been working in teams of 4 to develop a bridge made out of popsicle sticks. The bridges were tested to see which one could hold the most weight. But of course, this is engineering, so the winner would be the bridge that held the most weight while using the least amount of materials. All the bridges were weighed and then tested till failure. Then we calculated the load-to-weight ratio to find out the winner. There were other prices like most innovative design, best report, and the on-time award.

Bridges are ready for testing

The testing of the bridges was absolutely hilarious. All of the teams had to get involved with hooting and hollering. There was chanting and encouragement and laughing and really loud coaching from the team members not placing the load on the bridge. The load consisted of wet sand dumped into a bucket that was tied to scale and then the bridges. So the team member placing the sand in the bucket had to deal with their team mates' insistence on going faster, slower, left, right, up, down or simply not worry and just dump the bucket full in there.

Second year student Angie inspects the bridges

Our second year students were there to encourage their freshmen colleages. But they were also the judges in the best design competition. It was really nice to see the kids that were here last year encouraging the newbies and receiving kudos for having gone through this before. We must be doing something right, last year the winner held around 50 pounds. This year the lightest bridge held the most weight at a whopping 140 pounds!!!!

Students botanical presentations

Our agriculture students were not left out. They went on a field trip to survey local farmers and learn what the issues those farmers face are. The students took a list of questions that had to deal with subjects from economics of the farm to its biodiversity. The students also did measurements at the farm of things like acreage and crop coverage area. They then went on a field study of the surrounding areas. With the always enthusiastic help of Mr. Lahai, our botany professor, they took field guides to identify plants in the area and their uses. The students treated us to a presentation of their preserved samples along with a discussion of the uses of those samples in medicine, culture, ornamental, and environmental uses. The samples showed all sorts of uses: caine juice liquor, balms for rashes, tea for malaria and even a highly powerful plant used in potions for the poro and sandie societies.

Vaccinating the goats

Later in the week the agriculture students went to our new experimental farm of Kpondeh Town. That farm is being funded by a UNDP proposal that SWB and our NGO partner CRCA received for sustainable farm. There the Lofa Educational and Agricultural Foundation (LEAF) and the county livestock supervisor gave the students a practical training. They learned how to handle animals, factors for the establishment of a farm and the needed vaccines and medicines for goats, sheep and some other animals. Of course, they their hands dirty by actually vaccinating all the goats, sheep and dogs in the farm!

The Egg drop machines

We closed our week with a marvelous EGG DROP competition that our good friend and Peace Corps volunteer Ryan Macloughlin coordinated. It was an optional competition and the only prices are bragging rights. The students were instructed to create groups with at least one agriculture student and one engineering student in each team. They were then to create an egg protection machine to enter into the competition. The materials available were cardboard, popsicle sticks, masking tape, and rubber bands.

They built their machines on Saturday afternoon. Even the Teaching assistants, the GIEU students and some of the instructors entered the competition! On Sunday afternoon we gathered around the 150 ft tall clock tower on our campus. Each team sent a representative to launch their machine to see which ones would allow the egg to survive the drop.

Despite of my incredibility about half of the 13 teams actually had a successful attempt. The designs involving parachutes made out of cardboard seemed to fair the best. Unfortunately both instructors that entered the competition failed! Sara and Ryan are going to have to figure out a better way to save their egg!

So, the third week of our program ended with a big success, some broken eggs and a lot of laughs.