Last week, I co-taught the camp I designed, titled “The Science of Soccer”. My thanks go out to Gloria Chan of The Springwell School, as well as Meredith Kaunitz and Jennifer Dudley of ArtPlayLearn for hosting, promoting, enabling and co-teaching the camp. Special thanks to The Springwell School intern, Victoria Hinton, for her patience and wisdom in dealing with kids and coaches!
Designing the camp
I first mentioned The Science of Soccer in this blog post, regarding bringing science to where kids are. The idea for this camp came from my own experience in high school Physics class. I found the concept of vector (a direction associated with a speed for any moving object) foreign. At the time, it seemed like I would never grasp this idea.
Yet soccer is nothing but vector. Each kick of the ball, each throw-in from the sidelines or by the goalie, is an object moving in a direction with a speed.
Other concepts relate as well. Velocity–the speed of an object moving in a particular direction. Acceleration, the changing speed of an object. Force–an influence that causes an object to accelerate. We usually don’t start teaching these ideas to kids until middle school at the earliest. Yet why not, when faced with the tactile experience of kicking a ball, introduce these ideas as they relate to that action?
It doesn’t require a physics lecture on the soccer field. It only requires mentioning the terms and ideas behind them as the kids are kicking, throwing, and stopping the soccer ball.
Thus, The Science of Soccer camp was born.
The camp
The Springwell school hosted the camp for the week of July 17-21, 2023. We met most days at the field, and played as long as conditions allowed.
Alas, the conditions. Bugs, excessive heat, and poor air quality did affect our ability to stay on the field. However, they did not interfere with playing soccer and learning. We brought both inside and continued the fun. I’ve already written a blog post on the affect of the Canadian wildfires on people’s lives. Monday and Tuesday of camp were just one more example in which the long fingers of climate change affects the play of children. More on that another time.
What the kids learned
On the last day of camp, I asked each camper what they learned from the camp. The answer that touched my heart came from a camper that had gotten upset earlier in the day. The answer that made the scientist and educator in me happy was said with great enthusiasm, “Force!”. The kids may not have gotten all of the concepts, but at least one knows that there are forces in the world. It is truly a joy to be with kids and help them learn, about life, forces, and soccer.
What I learned
The campers ranged in age from 5-8. While they generally got along, we were fortunate that each camper had someone close to their own age. The difference between 55 and 58 is nothing, but the difference between 5 and 8 is huge when it comes to learning and physical abilities. I started to learn, on the fly, how to make both the soccer and the science accessible to these different campers. Many thanks to coach Jennifer for her work in adapting the soccer play to the younger players.
None of the campers had the focus to sit still and take in even a five minute discussion of physics concepts. That’s appropriate for this age group. I learned to grab teachable moments and run with them. In a moment of non-soccer play, two of the students were dragging a third, and largest student over an area rug. I seized the moment and spoke to them about friction as another force.
I said “started to learn” in the first paragraph in this section because I know I have still much to learn as I continue this work with young people. I’m looking forward to it.
