Good Sam Enjoys their Summer as Future Islanders

ELITE Graduate Program with the College of Education hosted 60 Good Samaritan Summer Enrichment  school children, grades 1st through 5th, as they enjoyed the “islander college experience” for a day

Led and coordinated by Dr. Laura Rosales, Director of the ELITE Graduate Program, and Dr. Faye Bruun, Assistant Professor in the College of Education, The future islanders program provided Good Samaritan children from Oak Park Elementary School with an enjoyable “college experience” for the day. The children learned about activities the university offers as well as an introduction to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields.

Good Samaritan is a non-profit organization in Corpus Christi committed to changing lives through community services like their 2012 summer enrichment program at Oak Park Elementary School.

Thanks to the following for providing activities for the future islanders to engage in:

Campus Tour Map 

Dr. Riccardo Mozzachiodi, Assistant Professor in the College of Science & Technology provided a unique opportunity for the students to tour his science labs located in Center for Sciences. The future islanders were able to learn how the human brain forms and retains memories. As the University’s only neurophysiologist, Dr. Mozzachiodi studies memory using the marine snail Aplysia Californica. The future islanders were able to view, touch, and feed the snails that are under the study of Dr. Mozzachiodi and his university students.

Stephanie Arevalo, Recreational Sports Assistant Director of Facilities provided the future islanders with a unique fitness and wellness experience at the Dugan Wellness Center.  The Recreational Sports team also included Nadine Teja , Coordinator of Fitness & Wellness provided a fun and interactive session showing the future islanders how to make healthy food choices. The future islanders were also treated to a special Zumba dance session with Stephanie Harlien, Fitness Instructor and ELITE cohort member.

Trisha Hernandez, Librarian with the Bell Library took our future islanders on an exploratory journey around the library, including the media labs, the principal service points (where to get help and borrow books) and the Special Collections and Archives where the personal papers of Dr. Hector P. Garcia can be found.

Dr. Faye Bruun, Assistant Professor in the College of Education treated the future islanders to a fun and interactive mathematics session centered around the the question, ”Are You A Square?”. Dr. Bruun taught the children about Leonardo de Vinci’s discovery that a proportional person has height equal to the arm span. Students measured each other’s height and arm span in metric units, to determine if they are a square, a tall rectangle, or a wide rectangle.

Julie Joffray, Intervention Specialist of ELITE and Liza Wisner, Associate Director of ELITE  recruited and coordinated the future islander tour guides. Our volunteer tour guides were:

• Patricia Rodriguez
• Denis Wisner
• Guillermo Castillo
• Lily Gu
• Katrina Alejandro
• Monica Ramirez
• Jacob Gossett
• Samantha Klassen
• April Hinojosa
• Rosalinda Dunne
• Siham Ashour

A special thanks to Elizabeth Benson-Landau, Program Coordinator of ELITE and Jason Rydzewski, Graduate Coach of ELITE  for coordinating the food and refreshments.

Thank you again to all those who helped make this experience a success for the future islanders!

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