Broadening horizons

By Laura Johnston ~ Southeast Missourian

When Austin Nenninger mixed a few drops of alcohol with some pepper, cloves, orange and lemon peel and vanilla, he wasn't sure exactly what he'd end up with.

His beaker, corked to keep the scents contained, looked a little like tobacco juice instead of cologne.

"It's a little strong," he warned anyone who might want to sniff. The pepper seemed to have overcome any of the other scents.

Nenninger's concoction included "just about everything they gave us," said Danny Comeau, a classmate. Except lavender, Nenninger added, but only because he couldn't find any left.

Comeau's perfume, by comparison, smelled more like vanilla than the cinnamon and cloves he'd added to the alcohol mix.

But both had completed their chemistry experiment satisfactorily. The goal of their project was to understand how different things react in different environments.

The chemistry class is part of a youth summer learning program sponsored by Southeast Missouri State University that ended Friday.

Instructor James McGill began the week by telling students what chemistry is -- the study of matter, what matter is, and how matter can undergo changes.

"That's what we do, make matter undergo change," he said. The students make things they can use or take home and talk about what happened in their experiments.

More than 300 children were enrolled in the Horizons Summer Enrichment program run through the continuing education office on campus. The program ran from mid-June to mid-July. Other courses are offered periodically throughout the year, but typically are only daylong or morning events.

And the classes Horizons offered weren't what you might expect students to be interested in. The courses included zoology, architectural design and drawing, watercolors, creative writing, Spanish, archeology, crime scenes and rock climbing.

The classes are more fun than school, the students say. But they're learning just as much.

In the watercolors class, the children learned about a different artist each day and then completed a painting using that technique. So when they studied about Van Gogh, the group talked about how different textures are created.

Morgan Drury, 11, liked the lesson on Degas when the project was to dip a piece of fabric in milk and then create a design using oil pastels. Her cousin, Courtney Schneider, 10, preferred the style of Georges Seurat and drew a butterfly using raised dots.

Across campus, Grant Eudy was making a molecular model with colored clay. He had been to the Horizons camps before but didn't get to enroll in the chemistry class then because it had been full. It was his first choice for this summer, though.

"It's good to learn things," Eudy said as he rolled the colored clay.

Paul Starrett is impressed by the quality of learning and programs that Horizons has been able to offer. His sons have enrolled in the courses for three years now. Both took the chemistry class last week, too.

"It's not just five days of chemistry because what they've done is make it fun," Starrett said.

"It's a wonderful way to expose them to these things in a fun and interesting way. It give science a good name in these youngsters' minds."

Years from now when these children have to take a high school or college science class, maybe they'll remember the fun they had at the Horizons program, Starrett said.

His sons have taken classes in chemistry, biology and pottery.

The Horizons program is designed to introduce students to college and learning in a hands-on, exciting way, said Michelle Kilburn, assistant director of the continuing education office.

"It helps them see that going to college isn't scary," she said. All the courses are taught by university faculty and staff.

The selection of courses depends on what proposals have been received, but some standard favorites are rock climbing, "It's a bug's life," which is a course in entomology, and the arts and theatre classes.

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126