students at a summer camp in June.
The University of Minnesota Extension has a longstanding partnership with the White Earth Nation to operate a summer day-camp program for 40 reservation youth in grades 4 to 8. This year, the Roadway Safety Institute (RSI) sponsored one day of the two-week camp in June.
The program focuses on hands-on learning and uses Indian culture and heritage as a vehicle for studying math, science, and engineering.
RSI staff taught several lessons about safe travel in a variety of modes. Students experimented with reflectivity to understand safe pedestrian and bike travel and studied GIS mapping. The dangers of distracted driving and walking were also demonstrated by testing students’ reaction time. Connections to students’ heritage included Ojibwe vocabulary lessons and discussions of local animals’ travel patterns and traits.
Through these interactive lessons, students deepened their science and math skills while learning practical information about being safe travelers. Local engineers and a 3M representative also participated, sparking students’ desire to pursue higher education and STEM careers.
“Through these lessons, students gained an understanding of safe travel practices,” says Colleen O’Connor Toberman, CTS/RSI program coordinator. “Our goal is that they become models for safe travel in their community.”
“It was our pleasure having the RSI team at the White Earth program. The lessons were very engaging, and our students enjoyed the varied topics,” says Deb Zak, regional director of the U of M Extension’s Northwest District. “We would love to have RSI participate in our camp again in 2016.”
RSI also hosted 10 students in grades 7–11 from the Red Lake Nation on June 15 as part of another summer camp program. Students toured the Minnesota Traffic Observatory (MTO) and learned about traffic safety from Chen-Fu Liao, MTO’s educational systems manager.
