junior program summer site : conversations : first session



	jeremiah from new york (7/12) Jeremiah is a residential Voyager at the Junior Program for his first summer. He enjoys canoeing, laser tag, and archeology. He loves Explo so much, he compares it to a Golden-Doodle: friendly, playful, and comfortable. What did you do yesterday? Yesterday I had my two classes: “X Marks the Spot” [archaeology + anthropology], and “Goofy Gadgets,” which is Lego engineering. Kara is my teacher for “X Marks the Spot,” and “Goofy Gadgets” is with Dylan. They both rock! What did you do in “X Marks the Spot”? We worked on our dig site for the second day, and we found a lot of cool stuff. Our dig site is by the pond on West Campus. What are you digging for? We’re digging for artifacts that might be found there because the site used to be a playground for kids who lived on campus, and a trash site. We’ve found a lot of stuff already. We found toy soldiers, toy hammers, some jacks, a vacuum, a small wooden box with a dollar in it . . . You found a vacuum cleaner? Yeah. Well, it was a small one. And we found some broken sandals. What else are you learning in that class? We’re learning about digging methods, how to take care of the artifacts, and how to bag them and label them. First, after we find the artifact, we take out the dirt with the shovel and we pass it to the sifters who then sift it with the sifters. If they don’t find anything, they just put the dirt in a pile. But if they do find something, they pass the artifact to the recorders. And if the diggers find anything they’ll pass it to the recorders, too. Then, the recorders fill out an artifact report for each artifact and put it in a plastic bag with the artifact. Kara said we’re going to give most of the artifacts to St. Mark’s to put on display. What made you decide to take that class? Well, I’ve always been really interested in archeology and anthropology. At the Museum of Natural History, which is in New York, they have these fake dig sites so I got to do something like that before. What are you doing in “Goofy Gadgets”? Well, first we learned about environments and resources that people use. Then, our teacher Dylan created terrains and we had to build on them. Now we’re making cars and we’re going to program them. What did you build on the terrains? Well, my group had an arctic terrain. Since there aren’t many energy sources up there, we had to create alternative engery. So, we had a windmill, solar power, a hydraulic pump thing, and a skyscraper that a town was built around. We also had a tollbooth, because if someone wanted to get the energy from there, they could pay money and that could be a big source of income. Have you started making your cars yet? Yeah, this will be our second day working on them. My group is building a tank with treads and four-wheel drive. We’re still building it because tanks are really tough to make. Then we’ll be programming it. We use “Robolab,” which is an awesome program that comes with the Lego Mindstorms. You can program the cars to go forward and backward. If you have a lamp, you can get the lamp to go on at certain times for a certain amount of time. You can also hook up sensors so that if it bumps into something, it will stop and turn around. How are your classes at Explo different than your classes at school? Well, at Explo, it’s not only about learning, it’s also very centralized on learning through fun. At school it’s also like that, but at Explo we also have longer classes, so we get to focus on them more. There is also a better student-teacher ratio, so the teachers can focus on their kids more. We don’t get graded or have homework, and that’s awesome. And the classes are so fun that you still think about them when you’re walking around or when you’re in your room. What did you do last night for main event? We got to see the Bellowphone show. It’s a show where this guy comes in and he shows us these eccentric instruments that he’s created, and then he plays stuff for us. What did he play? He played the “Light Cavalry” something, and he played the theme for The Lone Ranger. The Majestic Bellowphone is his main instrument: it’s tall and metal, and he used stuff that he found around his house or at hardware stores to make it. It has squeeze balls that he squeezes to make the sound. He created a pipe organ, and he said that the hardest part was creating the keys for it. He can hook them up to his hunting horns, which are squeeze balls with horns. He also has a cuckoo whistle and a laughing horn, which sounds like somebody laughing. What have been some of your favorite main events? Aside from this one, I really liked going to Laser Zone. I was in the blue-wristband group, and we got to play three games of laser tag. We won two times and lost the third time. Aside from the courses and main events, what else do you like about Explo? Well, we have “quad time”, which is a free time that we get to spend out in the quad. There are mini-courses, which we get to do every Wednesday. The two mini-courses that I’m doing are “Canoeing + Kayaking” with Dylan, who is also my “Goofy Gadgets” teacher, and I’m taking “Wilderness Survival” with Kara, who is also my “X Marks the Spot” teacher. What a coincidence. What’s your favorite part about mini-courses? Well, they’re longer, so we get to spend more time working on them. In “Canoeing + Kayaking,” we get to go canoeing and kayaking, as the name implies. Last week we took the boats to Hopkington, but the waves were really strong. We tried to get to a cove across the water but it blew us into a beach so we had to carry the canoes across land for a little while. Are canoeing and kayaking hobbies of yours? Sort of. Every summer I go to Cape Cod and I canoe and kayak in lakes there. What are the people at Explo like? Well, all the staff members are very friendly, and all the students are all really nice. My roommate is friendly. He likes to read like me, and he likes math and that’s awesome because I like math. We talk, and sometimes we read silently during quiet time. We like the same books -- mostly magic and high-tech books. Did you know him before Explo? No, I didn’t. I was just lucky that I got placed with him. Is it easy to make friends at Explo? Yeah, because all the kids are really nice here. They’re very friendly and they try their best to be good people. If you were to give advice to someone that was thinking about coming to Explo next year, what would you say? When you have to do something like laundry, or you have to brush your teeth and you have to make your bed, always do it early so that you can do the fun stuff. If you know you’re going to eat a lot, don’t just take a lot of food at the beginning. If you don’t finish it, that’s wasting a lot of food. So if you think you can have three bowls of cereal for breakfast, take one. When you finish, take another, and when you finish that one, take another. If you’re going to get in line for a meal, always get in the line that goes to the Big Room because that line is always shorter. And when you want to go to the quad, cut through the Airport Lounge because that way is faster. Sounds like you know all the shortcuts. Would you recommend Explo to somebody? Definitely. Definitely. Explo is my kind of summer program. When I was looking at camp videos, all of them had the same song with pictures of kids doing sports. That’s not the kind of program that I would like to go to. But when I saw Explo’s video, they actually talked about the program and showed videos of students talking about how they liked it and how it’s really great. It also mixes different ethnicities, because it’s for kids from all around the world. One kid in my hall is from Hong Kong, one kid I know has lived in Japan for 10 years of his life, and, of course, I’ve met a lot of people from the U.S., too. But what if you were the type of person that enjoyed lots of sports? Would they enjoy Explo? Yeah! On mini-course day, they have two-hour long sports courses. There’s always a “Sport of the Day,” and you can play games or dance out on the quad. There’s something for everyone. If Explo were a type of animal, what would it be? A Golden-Doodle. They’re big, friendly, and very playful. Explo has a large campus where you can go around and do a lot of stuff. There is something here for everyone, so that’s a friendly element. And it’s comfortable. You feel at home here. It’s a really nice place, and Golden-Doodles are really nice dogs. more conversations > first session \| second session