LIMA, Ohio (WLIO) - In the summer, Rhodes State College opens their doors to area students to learn more about science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math through classes for their Rhodesology summer camp.
Students are grouped together with kids around their age and participate in activities that are geared toward their grade level. The youngest group, grades 2-4, had fun with Lego pieces of all kinds as they built mazes in the Lego: Build, Play, Destroy, Repeat class. This allowed the students to be hands-on with their learning and got their minds working to figure out how to get a marble through the maze.
"It gets them engaged more, and helps them on challenges that they can come up to, and help them figure out and get through those challenges," said McKenzie Douglas, a Rhodesology instructor. "Having the hands-on and building different structures can help them do that."
Rhodesology instructors add that getting students this age excited about STEM now may help spark an interest and could lead to a career in the future.
"Building with just Legos, it's just Legos. It's very simple," said Douglas. "When they get more advanced with robotics or something like that, they already have a structure built with just the Legos, and then if they move up, they can get more advanced with the robots and adding eyes and adding arms and making the Legos move things like that. It can get them started with the structure and STEM."
But for the students themselves, these classes are just a lot of fun where they can play and learn with new friends.
"I like doing Legos at my house, and I'm working on a Ferrari," said Zach Wanat, a 3rd grader. "You can build and make your tower super high."
"It can help you learn stuff that you didn't know before you went there, and it also gives you the chance to try something new every year," Evie Whitney, a 3rd grader.
Other classes offered for this age group included an art class, learning about space, and all about the history and hidden gems of the state of Ohio.
