Students at Winamac Community Middle School are using their science and math skills to find ways to keep active.
Eastern Pulaski School superintendent Dan Foster says the school’s taking part in the TechFit program, “It’s designed from professors from South Carolina and a couple professors at Purdue, and they were starting to combat and struggle with the reality of obesity in children and trying to find ways to get students active. And so they’re using the principles of STEM, the science, technology, engineering, and math.”
He says the students have to take those concepts and put them into use, “What they have to do is the kids have to design a game that uses all these different areas and then keeps them active – so it’s not a video game!”
Middle school teacher Cody Hook told the School Board about the program during its meeting Tuesday. He and two other teachers started the TechFit program at the middle school after learning about it during a week-long training course over the summer at Purdue.
Foster says one of the great things about the program is that it engages students with a variety of skills and interests, “Some of them are kind of coming out of their shells. They’re finding different things that they are comfortable with. Maybe they’re not the actual science person, but maybe they’re very good with communication, and part of this is community involvement. So, they’ve started their own Facebook page, and a few weeks ago they had a sign over Highway 35 out here, so just finding ways for kids to be involved in something.”
Also during Tuesday’s meeting, the School Board accepted a $1,000 donation to the TechFit program from Mike Raisor Buick GMC Cadillac and Imports in Lafayette, as well as a $250 donation to the high school scholarship fund from Gibraltar Design.
The School Board plans to hear a presentation from students involved in the TechFit program during an upcoming meeting.
