June 19, 2002
NMC offers College for Kids
Summer program features science, art and computer classes
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Where can you make paper, build a bagel creature, learn web page design and throw pots?
This week, the place to learn all these things - and more - is the Northwestern Michigan College's College for Kids. Kicking off their summer program on Monday, the College for Kids offers something for everyone from ages 4-17 throughout the summer.
Forget about being bored this summer, students participating in the College for Kids have reason to be excited.
"I like building stuff," said Levi Gourdie, 8, a student in Monday's Inventor's Workshop class who made a spiny alligator built from a bagel, gumdrops, toothpicks and pasta.
Patrick Koro, 8, found some significant benefits to attending the Inventor's Workshop this week.
"This is somewhere I can go so my sister doesn't bug me," said Koro, who will also be taking the Land of the Dinosaurs, Volcanoes and Creepy Crawlies classes. "Science is so boring in school because they talk a lot and don't let you do stuff. Here, you can do things."
College for Kids courses meet from one session to one week to six weeks and focus on everything from bugs, hip hop dancing and computer programming to languages and culture, photography and building a solar-powered model car.
"It is not uncommon for people to take a host of classes," said Carol Evans, director of the college's Extended Education Services, which oversees the College for Kids. "But we also have many who come for just one class if it is something that fits their schedule or stands out for them."
Evans said that the program expects around 1,000 students this summer to participate in the 114 classes offered. This year, the program is also offering some courses in Elk Rapids and one art class in Suttons Bay.
Over the past 12 years, the College for Kids has drawn more than 10,500 students who have participated in 912 class offerings. Not every class is offered every year and each year new classes are added. This winter's wildly popular class called Harry Potter's Apprentice, geared to students in grades 4-6, was added to the summer schedule and filled so quickly a second section was added.
"We get feedback from each class and distribute surveys to the instructors to see how the classes went," Evans said. "Many of the instructors help come up with the amazing list of ideas and other times we go out and look for someone to teach a class we thought of."
For the instructors, the summer classes are a relaxed time where kids really throw themselves into their work.
"The kids walk out of here with finished pieces," said Karen Evans, the instructor of the six-week Pottery class held in the college's Fine Arts Pottery Studio. "The older girls who come back are really helpful to the younger students."
The Kids on Campus program is back this year for the third time. Held this year at the new M-TEC building, the week-long program will include a host of programs from the regular College for Kids courses. The condensed schedule, however, makes it appealing to working parents, Evans noted.
"We know our programs can be difficult for working parents to fit in and wanted to create a whole week where kids could take a choice of classes in the morning and in the afternoon," she said. "The whole idea is to make a camp experience for kids and that week we just kind of throw the doors open and roll out the welcome mat and turn this into a kid place."
For more information on the College for Kids or the Kids on Campus, call 995-1700 or visit the NMC website at www.nmc.edu/ees.