Master teacher Meredith Cochran is busy putting final touches on plans for this summer’s camps, for 1800 learners, at the North Carolina Museum of Life + Science. She took time to share SMILE's impact on her work as an informal educator.
How does SMILE help your summer planning?
Our weeklong camps range over a dozen different topics across multiple age groups, and leave our team with over thirty camps to develop and implement. We end up sorting through A LOT of activities! The SMILE collection comes from such a wide variety of institutions, it helped me begin to see a bigger picture of the work we are a part of in our field. The work you are doing draws us all up into a greater standard of collaboration.
Do you make lists at Howtosmile.org?
I wish I would have made more while I was planning for summer camp. I realize now that it's a great way to access all my activities without researching for each one. I'll probably gather feedback from our summer camp educators and add that to the SMILE activities at the end of the summer—and make my lists then, so I have them for camp next year!
What are your camp plans for this summer?
I've written programming for astronomy, invention, behind the scenes at the museum, and wilderness survival camps. We try to connect with local scientists, organizations, and community partners as much as possible to enhance and collaborate on our camp experiences.
Can you share an anecdote from your summer camp experiences?
One of my favorite moments was from Space Camp last summer. We had spent 10 minutes watching videos of rocket launch bloopers in the museum's Aerospace exhibit, and were back in our classroom. Campers were taking apart and reconstructing small paper rockets. One camper was particularly frustrated at trying to fit his back together "correctly." As I worked with him through some tears and discouragement, a light went on in his head: happily gluing his pieces together all out of order and in the wrong place, he proudly held up his finished product shouting, "My rocket is BLOOPING! Mine's like the videos! It's bloopin'!" I was thrilled to see his creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
What's the impact of informal education on your work?
I've been at the museum for a year and a half. Before this, I was a public school teacher for 4 years and a corps member of Teach For America, living and teaching in a rural community in eastern North Carolina. It's been really valuable to add the perspective of informal learning to what I know and understand about education. I've been amazed at the impact informal education has had on ME, as I learn from and with our participants through the learning experiences we create.
Of all the SMILE activities you use, which is your favorite?
What Can You Invent From A Bag of Junk—such great creative potential when kids see all the ideas that can come from the same bag of stuff! This summer, the activities we're using also include Solar System Bead Distance, Rocket Pinwheel, Designing Bandages, and Invention for Sale.