Calistoga kids getting energized | Napa Valley Register

Home » News » Local

Calistoga kids getting energized

Workshops tied to Sonoma State put students on cutting edge

Monday, February 04, 2008

Comment

By DANIELLE VENTON
For the Register

Equipped with a flashlight battery and a transformer, Jonah Pelter, a fifth-grader at Calistoga Elementary School, knows how to make a “shocker,” a device able to give a mild zap to anyone in his range.

Pelter learned this at an electrical energy workshop last year at Sonoma State University. The lesson certainly caught his attention.

“He still talks about it,” said his mom, Tammy.

Jonah was one of 54 kids from the Calistoga Joint Unified School District in the Excel program last spring, and he is eager for more. He plans to go to three more Excel workshops this spring.

Excel for Youth is an enrichment program held on Sonoma State University’s campus for fourth- to ninth-graders from CJUSD and other Napa County schools. Students will build, draw, write, edit, act and — if all goes according to plan — be inspired.

For many kids, the location of the workshops is a part of the excitement.

“It’s really cool that we get to go on a college campus,” said Jonah. It’s “much bigger and cooler” than regular school.

“For many kids this is their first time on a college campus,” said Drew Sparks, a coordinator at Calistoga Elementary. “These kinds of experiences ... expand horizons.”

Exposure to secondary education can encourage students’ aspirations. For CJUSD, Excel is part of an effort to help students aim high, said Superintendent Jeff Johnson.

The school district launched a program called Choices last year to build a culture of high expectations, said Johnson. “We want our students to have the maximum number of choices available to them — with no limitations in their options — when they graduate.”

“We especially want to reach out to those kids who would probably not get onto a college campus otherwise,” said Johnson.

Johnson approached the Calistoga Family Center to help spread the word to bilingual, possibly hesitant, parents to complete the Excel’s application form.

Workshops scheduled for this spring include another installment of “Exploring Electricity,” “Bubblemania” where kids will use soap bubbles to investigate chemistry and physics, an animation workshop in which a “Giant Robot Destroys Metropolis,” and “Basic Cartooning” taught by a professional cartoon artist.

No comments posted.

Join the conversation

*Member ID:
*Password:
Remember login? (requires cookies)
	Forgot Your Password?

Create an account

Comment Guidelines

The goal of the story comments section at NapaValleyRegister.com is to have an open, thought-provoking, civil community forum for all issues.

What gets your comment posted?

• Staying on topic

• Keeping your comment to 300 words or less

• Avoiding name-calling

• Addressing your comments to the message rather than the messenger

What gets your comment deleted?

• Personal attacks

• Derogatory remarks

• Name-calling of any sort

• Going off-topic

• Hate speech

• Racially-insensitive comments

• Implying guilt of a subject in a crime story before there is a court verdict

• Posting e-mail addresses

• Posting comments of a commercial nature

• POSTING WITH ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

• Linking multiple comments together with "to be continued..." to get around the 300 word limit.

The fine print

- Comments are either approved or denied. We do not edit comments.

- You are welcome to modify and resubmit a denied comment.

- Comments may take several hours to be posted.

- Comments posted are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of NapaValleyRegister.com, its employees or its parent company.

- Do you have information on a story? Please go to our virtual newsroom to send us a news tip.

- If you feel a posted comment has violated our guidelines, please contact online@napanews.com or add a comment indicating you have an issue and our moderators will review the comment in question.

Search: