Helping hands and hands-on history

COEUR d'ALENE — Elementary students took a step back in time for live history day.

Fernan STEM Academy fourth- and fifth-graders spent Wednesday learning about Idaho history and science, including a special visit from Coeur d’Alene High School student volunteers.

“I haven't worked with kids since I was a kid so it's fun that we started doing this,” junior Ryan Robinson said. “I think we should actually be able to do this every year because it's a great experience.”

About 34 high schoolers from Birgid Niedenzu’s environment science classes volunteered to bring Idaho history and science themed activities to the elementary school.

“The kids came up with the activities and we brought everything,” Niedenzu said. “It's also sort of a service project, and we're all about doing that anyway, to make our community, our environment better.”

Niedenzu said that aside from learning about Idaho history and nature, she thought the activities would teach kids to take care of their environment.

Robinson taught the elementary kids about the pH levels of water, as well as oxygen and bugs, as they looked through buckets of lake water from Fernan Lake and capsules with different water bugs.

“Sometimes they’re a little hyper,” Robinson said. “But other than that they just want to look at the bugs.”

Fifth-grader Cooper Fordham said he enjoyed making Native American crafts and thought working with the high school students was exciting.

“I think they did a good job,” Cooper said. “They knew exactly what to do.”

To prepare for history day, the high schoolers spent the last week in class practicing the activities and getting everything together to prepare for teaching.

“They’re actually broadening their knowledge base,” Niedenzu said. “Every time they teach it they get better at it.”

Rebecca Webb, a fourth grade teacher at Fernan STEM Academy, said the coolest part of the day was the collaboration with the high school students.

“It's really good for some of our kids to see students who are at those higher levels who take their learning seriously and have their own areas of inquiry," Webb said. “I think they look at them as role models."

With the mix of high school volunteers, Webb said it was especially inspirational for the students to see male role models. The majority of teachers in elementary school are women.

Students learned how to make soap, identify Idaho wildlife and water quality, painted walking sticks and more with the high school students. That followed a morning full of Idaho live history with their teachers.

“Our kiddos got to just kind of experience things that people in the early days of our state settlement might have experienced,” Webb said. “I think we'd like it to become a tradition so that kids can experience things through their learning instead of just learning about things."

Webb said they have a philosophy that hands-on learning is the best way to learn.

“If the kids are talking, collaborating, and hands on, they're absorbing a lot more and kind of internalizing a lot more of the studies,” Webb said. “Really visualizing all that is going to stick with them a lot more than if they just looked all of that up in a textbook.”