AHOSKIE – AIG students at Hertford County Early College demonstrated their leadership skills by conducting a Maker Faire for AIG students from Riverview Elementary, Bearfield Primary and Ahoskie Elementary.

Students were greeted at the Roanoke Chowan Community College Gymnasium by Jennifer Symth, English teacher. Symth helped organize this special event in collaboration with HCPS District AIG Coordinator, Pamela Baker.

A Maker Faire is an event created by Make Magazine to “celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and Do-It-Yourself Mindset.”

“Events like this enhances creativity and encourages students to investigate and think outside of the box. Critical thinking is where it all begins and we must provide and foster environments like this for our students to explore”, said Baker.

The students were given an opportunity to participate in several different stations. Stations provided included Claymation, Drawdio, Drawbots, Makey Makey, Little Bits

Etch a Sketch, Arduino, Egg drop, Paper current, Book binding, and Creating pop up books.

Students were actively engaged in creating robots that would draw as well as building electronic building blocks.

A station that seemed to draw a lot of attention was the Egg Drop. This station allowed students to design a device that would allow an egg to be dropped from the top of stairs and not crack. Some students’ designs were successful, however others were not. This experiment allowed students to discuss, analyze, and critique one another’s designs.

The HCEC students demonstrated their leadership skills as they assisted the younger students and encouraged them to implement their own creativity and uniqueness when given a task. Engaged learning equals student success and HC AIG students are rising to the occasion.