Durham students take learning to a new level

Central Park served as a research laboratory for a group of about 50 Durham Middle School students last week.

Lewisville ISD partnered with Waste Management Inc. to sponsor the first Camp Durham project, which used a project-based curriculum to sharpen student's math and science skills. The two-week camp ran from July 9-12 and July 16-19.

"We wanted students to hone their skills in all subject areas, but we wanted this to be far different from the traditional classroom they are used to," said LISD spokeswoman Sarah Marcus.

Katie Richmond, a sixth grade math teacher at Durham, was one of several teachers who helped develop the idea for the project. She said the campers focused on three main areas: park safety, the environment and crime rates. Students split into groups on the first day and spent the week collecting information about the topic they selected. How the students choose to gather information was completely up to them.

"The students will have to create everything from the ground up," Richmond said. "All the instructors are doing is facilitating. They are the ones that need to take control of the project and really make it their own."

After the campers gathered information about some of the park's problem areas, they came up with solutions about how to fix them. The students estimated how much their solutions would cost to implement and prepared presentations to showcase their ideas. The idea is for students to practice skills they might be struggling with in school, Richmond said.

"We want this camp to help them practice what they're learning in school and apply it to real life situations," Richmond said. "So kids struggling with math might be doing the finance part of the project."

On the final day of the camp, all of the participants met at Central Park to pick up trash. Richmond said the camp was such a success that the teachers plan to start a club that deals with some of the same issues.

Noah Potthast, a seventh-grader at Durham, spent the week identifying locations for 14 new trashcans around Central Park. He said he enjoyed the camp and was confident that his presentation to the city officials went well.

"Some of the stuff we found was just gross, beer bottles and stuff like that," Potthast said. "Hopefully the new trashcans are going to help the amount of litter around here."

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