Students at Pakuranga Intermediate are to blame for spreading smiles among kids at Middlemore Hospital. Rowena Orejana investigates.
The blue star-shaped box holds wires and a small circuit board. On one side of the box is a switch; several lights go through the cover.
"It's not working," says Zerlinda Phun, a 12-year-old Pakuranga Intermediate student. She gives the wires a tweak and the lights go on. She smiles. "It's working now," she tells her teacher.
The box is actually an electronic game.
"You give a number between one to seven, press a button and a number of lights will light up. Whoever guesses the correct number wins," explains Zerlinda.
The game is part of Project Cheer, in which the students are linked with Kidz First at Middlemore Hospital to develop electronic games and badges to cheer up children recovering from surgery.
The project is the brainchild of electronics teacher Melissa Coles, who got the idea while reading a magazine article about a woman who played her guitar for refugee children to get them to accept help.
"She cheered them up first and I thought, this is something we can do," she says. "Let's help our community by getting our kids to cheer up others and help in the healing process."
While the students are engaging their hands and minds in creating the games and badges, they also learn empathy.
"One of the things we got from our stakeholder was don't order [sick children] to be brave. Let them wear a badge that says 'I'm brave'. Especially for kids who are suffering from cancer; ordering them to be brave is not appropriate," says Mrs Coles.
"It's magic," says Robyn Maria, hospital play specialist, "that these children can be that creative and that they are sharing their talents. For us, it's very important because we have a varied number of children in the hospital. We need these kinds of projects for their developmental stimulation."
Mrs Coles says a sponsor is needed for the project since the budget isn't enough to provide for the supplies.
Trustees Executors has contributed so the authentic learning programme can carry on.
Pakuranga Intermediate principal Stuart Myers says it's a fantastic opportunity for the students to see aspects of their project relate to the business world. "One thing that is really important to kids is to make connections with what they do here with life," he says.
Zerlinda is quite keen to finish her project.
"I think it will be really good that they will have fun and that their time in the hospital won't be that bad. We're lucky that we don't have to be in the hospital. We have to remember that some kids are not so lucky."
Real time
Authentic learning allows students to explore, discover, discuss and meaningfully build concepts and relationships in contexts that involve real-life problems and projects. These are relevant and interesting to the learner.
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