STC summer program gives kids chance to explore new avenues

McALLEN – Bits of tape, yarn and construction paper littered the hallway Thursday at South Texas College’s Pecan Plaza and clung to the arms and shoes of a swarm of chattering elementary students.

Several children clamored to spread glue on a long mural, while others rushed behind them to add a new bundle of wadded paper to a theatrical backdrop of a tornado.

“It’s for our play. Aliens are playing asteroid ball then the twister hits Mars and takes them to Earth,” explained Briana Pedraza, 10.

Like her, about 140 other McAllen school students have packed their week with careful research, script development and set and costume design to plan the perfect theatre production today for their parents.

Part of STC’s Kids College Summer 2011 Exploration Program, the camp encourages children to pepper their nerves for the performance with small tidbits of interstellar science they unconsciously collected.

“Mars has the largest mountain in the entire solar system,” said Victoria Villanueva, 10, who kept gluing. “And there’s this ice that if you touch it your skin comes out.

“There’s no life because the air’s not breathable. There’s no water to help plants grow and make oxygen from carbon dioxide like Earth,” Victoria breathlessly added.

In a neighboring classroom, other students added to the clutter, leaving strips of mailing labels and torn Styrofoam cups on the table and floor.

The debris came from the slowly perfected towers that the students made out of cups, straws and fishing bobbers to unwittingly test buoyancy, structure and other engineering concepts.

“The key is hands on,” said program developer Elias Hernandez. “How else do you motivate their minds?

“Traditional class doesn’t leave time for projects and experiments like this,” he said. “Here, they’re putting together an entire play in a week, playing in water…learning college and career ready skills while they play.”

In confirmation of his theory, Desirae Vasquez, 9, later yelled something rarely heard in school: “Let’s do it! Let’s take the test now!”

She joined the catcalls and cheers of her peers anxious to actually take a test on story structure.

“We’ve just been working so hard all week,” Desirae said. “I just want to finish and show I can get 100 percent!”

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Neal Morton covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956)683-4472.