MI GEAR UP at Central Michigan University

This summer Central Michigan University’s GEAR UP held three summer camps. One of these summer camps was for 10th grade GEAR UP students from the Flint area. Students went through an application process where we double checked their GPA and they had to write a paragraph essay. We had 35 students participate in the summer program in Flint.

My position with this summer camp was an administrative role. I learned a lot of the behind the scenes work that has to take place for the summer camp to run smoothly. This role started well before the camp did. Months before colleagues and I were passing out applications, flyers, visiting classrooms, and making phone calls to families so students would sign up for the program. We had the grand opportunity to work with Kettering University and Flint Community schools to set up transportation and space for our program. I learned that something as simple as a bowling outing takes weeks of preparation in advance. Calling organizations, answering emails from those organizations, and creating Parent Reception invitations is not the fun part of the job, but what I learned this summer was the importance of these tasks. I spent a lot of time setting up the activities students would be able to participate in, and then I was able to watch the students during those activities and see what they gained from them. What is rewarding is literally seeing your work unfold. The many phone calls and emails lead to a fun, memorable, and educational experiences for the students participating in the camp.

This past summer the MI GEAR UP office conducted three camps one for Flint tenth graders, another for Flint-area seventh graders, and a camp for Harrison and Saginaw tenth graders. These camps were facilitated by Summer Associates and other CMU students.

Our training for summer camps began with all staff from every camp coming together at Central Michigan University. To get acquainted with each other, we started off with a few ice breakers. Going into these icebreakers I was a little nervous because I had never met some of the staff before. I soon learned that there was nothing to be nervous about. The icebreakers helped breakdown my apprehensiveness and I realized the staff were nice people.

The Next part of training was the informative presentations of who we as a staff were, what we would be doing, and why we would be doing it. Once the staff became comfortable with our roles we went on to the real training.

Quashon leading students in an interactive activity during his Summer Associate experience

CMU's MI GEAR UP program partnered with CMU's Department of Education and Human Services to offer a summer STEM camp to Flint-area seventh graders. The result was Camp Central which ran from July 13th -16th. This camp was the second of three camps that MI GEAR UP Summer Associates worked.

Camp Central was designed to provide STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) based academic sessions to students who attended the camp. The academic sessions included Coding, Rockets, Math, and Bubbles/First Aid taught by CMU professors.

Summer Associates and College Positive Volunteers (CPVs) facilitated several career sessions which included Business, Neuroscience, Public Relation, Communications and School Counseling. The purpose of these sessions was to enlighten the students on the different majors CMU provides and different career fields. Each session had a Prezi presentation detailing information of the major and a brief overview of that CPV’s future career. An interactive activity was also tied into each session.

During this three day visit to CMU campers were exposed to many different components in order to enhance their overall camp experience. The students participated in team building activities such as the scavenger hunt and floor wars competition.

Campers showed great creativity during the Floor Wars challenge - a competition between the female campers and male campers to decorate their floor the best. This year's theme was Study Abroad.

In addition to team building and academic sessions, Summer Associates facilitated an activity, Lunch Buddies, to acquaint themselves with the campers and help the campers get to know students from other schools (campers hailed from multiple middle schools in the Flint-area). The students used the Student Activity Center (SAC) to unwind from a full day of academic and career sessions. At the SAC they had the options of bowling, swimming, basketball, volleyball, and billiards. 

Summer Associate, Kelsey Coleman helps tenth grade student successfully launch rockets during her Summer Associate experience.

This summer has been another one for the books! I came in as a new Summer Associate AmeriCorp VISTA not truly knowing what that meant, but ready for any and every task. Now, I have become an experienced Summer Associate VISTA, and an even more experienced GEARUP mentor.

We started small, then progressed to working with more students every step of the way. We began with Friday campus visits with our Harrison GEAR UP students. We then worked our way up to overnight camps that included nearly 30 students from Harrison and Saginaw. We finally made it to and through each full camp visit from Harrison/Saginaw, to Camp Central, to Flint campus week.

I was granted the opportunity to create and facilitate many activities this summer, like my very own career session. Last summer, my career session was about Social Work, however since then I have changed my major and my career path to School Counseling. With that in mind, I decided that I should give the students something new and create a School Counseling session, with a mini college fair activity. It was a great success and I’m glad I decided early to put the work in and finish strong.

I’ve gained a lot from the work experience as a Summer Associate. I was able to do a lot more of the behind the scenes work. I also gained more experience with the age group of students I want to work with. when I become a School Counselor. I plan on using many of the skills I’ve gained this summer wherever I go. I’ve developed my office skills, basic computer and typing skills, communication skills (especially with the age group of our students), problem solving, and the skill of being able to get something done extremely quickly.

VISTA stands for Volunteers in Service to America and is a branch of AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps is comprised of multiple local, state and national programs that are committed to servicing communities for educational, environmental, public safety and health, and homeland security needs. VISTA focuses on combating poverty here in the United States because there are about 46 million American people that live in poverty today.

As a college student here at Central Michigan University, I was naturally inclined to help serve a community on the basis of educational needs. And that’s one of the many benefits of serving as a VISTA Summer Associate.  As a Summer Associate I’ve gotten to work hand in hand with the CMU MI GEAR UP Program. MI GEAR UP stands for Michigan Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs and is a college access program for Pell eligible students. As a GEAR UP alumni and recipient of the GEAR UP Scholarship, I was definitely excited that my VISTA experience would be blended with this program. That’s why I got involved.

This summer our educational goal was to focus on STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Summer Associates and college student mentors facilitated many classes and workshops centered around this concept. We also got to interact with the students for a wonderful hands-on learning experience. The class that I facilitated was called Rube Goldberg. In this class, students got to build a complex machine made out of a few different simple machines. In the end they were given a simple task to accomplish with the machines that they built. Their tasks were to either turn off a light switch or set off a mousetrap. 

Summer Adventure 2013 was an amazing experience. My time with the MI GEAR UP 8th graders, I’m sorry, 9TH GRADERS has definitely impacted my life in a positive way. I had the privilege of becoming acquainted with students who come from a similar background as myself. It seems not too long ago when I was in their shoes; playful, rambunctious, yet fragile to the world’s burdens. Because of this familiarity in experience I was able to bond with this group more than I expected. Though I served as their mentor during Summer Adventure 2013, I felt like their big brother.

I was also responsible teaching within a classroom setting. I’ve never taught before, but I can now call myself a teacher. The GEAR UP mentors taught STEM (Science, Technology, English, and Math) and career sessions. We were responsible for coming up with the lesson plan and implementing it. I had great teammates who helped me every step of the way. My partner and I were responsible for teaching the “Fruit Battery” activity. During this activity we taught our students how to power a light bulb using the electrical currents from a piece of fruit. Students loved it.

I also taught a career session on Commercial Advertising. I challenged the students to create their own cereal and a commercial to advertise their product. In addition, I challenged the students to incorporate the MI GEAR UP program and Summer Adventure. This activity was by far the funniest experience of the summer. The students were really engaged and hilarious.

In only a weeks’ time I experienced trials, tribulations, and triumphs. Through it all I was able to grow from them. I am thankful for the experience and even more for the opportunity to get to know the students. Each one had an impact on me!

Although I consider myself passionate about diversity and educational opportunity, before working with GEAR UP I did not have any actual field experience in either area. Now that the summer is coming to a close, I am realizing just how valuable my experience with GEAR UP has been. I have met some phenomenal students from Flint and Harrison community schools, who I know will go on to change the world with their passion, intelligence, and drive.

The ultimate goal of GEAR UP is to get low-income and first generation students to attend college. GEAR UP does not just change the lives of the students in the program, but of the mentors involved, as well. It makes me proud to be a part of a program that changes so many lives.

GEAR UP has taught me things about diversity and inclusion that I couldn’t have learned in a classroom.

My favorite part of GEAR UP Summer Adventure was the chance I had to teach students about political science. Students created their own political parties and then held a debate about issues they cared about. The solutions students came up with for the difficult problems facing their community were illuminating.

I presented my career session on Sport Agents during the 2012 Summer Adventure camp. This year I presented on the same career. This year I was looking to increase the involvement of the students and explain more in depth about what it takes to become a sport agent. My goals for my career session were for the students to understand the importance of persuasion in being a successful sport agent. By the end of the session students were negotiating (fictitious) contracts for their athlete peers. Not only did they enjoy themselves, but they experienced the power of persuasion.

I also teamed up with a fellow mentor to conduct a STEM session on the Rube Goldberg Machine. This was difficult to teach because I had no prior knowledge of the Rube Goldberg Machine outside of seeing examples of it on the internet. However, with the help of my team, I was able to teach the students about the Rube Goldberg machine. The session was a success as the students had a great time and were very interactive during the class.

My favorite part of Summer Adventure was "Floor Wars." The students were very excited about being able to decorate their floors and win a prize. The male floor took it very serious and when they were allotted time to brainstorm and work on their project everyone participated and tried to help in any way possible. The end result was great and every floor had good decorations. When I gave the idea of floor wars I wasn’t sure if the students were going to like it, but they did and I hope this becomes a tradition for future summer adventure camps .

I can apply some of the teamwork and communication skills I have learned to my educational and professional pursuits. Working with a team is important in the career I would like to go into. I believe the team building situations and small group work that I took part in this summer has made me a better teammate. I will definitely take these experiences and skills with me as I move towards my goals. 

The career session that I conducted for Summer Adventure 2013 was regarding my major, Social Work. Since that is my major at CMU, it was easy coming up with a blueprint of what I wanted to address. However, the overall process of developing the session was difficult. Talking about Social Work can be stressful at times, which made creating a way to relate it to the students challenging. However, I enjoyed creating my career session, and all of the students were engaged and gave me great feedback.

I also conducted a STEM session on the Rube Goldberg machine. This session was also a challenge in terms of determining how to engage the students. My partner and I had to think from the student’s point of view in how they would build the system from scratch. Through the process I learned a lot about the Rube Goldberg system and I enjoyed watching the students create their projects.

My favorite part of Summer Adventure was when the students were able to relax and enjoy themselves at the dance/carnival. It was interesting to see the students work so hard throughout the week in their classes then watch them participate in the dancing and carnival activities.

Honestly, I re-learned a lot about myself during Summer Adventure 2013. I learned that sometimes I just need to focus on one task at a time and then move on. I also learned that being around so many kids at one time can bring out the inner kid in me!

My name is Bethany Ciolek. For my career session, I discussed the family studies major and a few jobs one could pursue with that degree. The goals of my career session were for students to (1) know the overall purpose/goal of the family studies major, (2) name at least one career that someone with a family studies major could pursue, and (3) relate teamwork and the family studies major. To achieve these goals, I talked about the major, careers, and teamwork; I also included three interactive activities to further explain the concepts.

For the stem session, my partner and I talked about buoyancy in our session, “Sink or Float." The goal of this session was for students to build a boat that would support the greatest mass, and understand why/how things float. To achieve this goal, they built their boats, tested them, and discussed why some boats held more mass than others.

My favorite part of Summer Adventure was working with a variety of people. I worked with ninth grade students, college students, and supervisors, each person offering a unique perspective.

Through this experience, I learned a few things about myself. I learned time management and leadership skills. I also learned that I have a lot of patience, especially when working with kids. The last thing I learned is that I truly believe everything is a learning experience.