Students learn practical skills

Middle school students in J.D. Smucker's Cars J-term class have spent the first two weeks of January having fun learning about cars while learning some practical hands-on skills. During their two week course students have dismantled a car to learn how it works and learned how to change a tire.

Eight-grader Dwight Markam, who won the tire-changing contest with a time of 3 minutes and 18 seconds, had not worked with cars before and has found the class both helpful and interesting. One of his highlights was opening the trunk of a car from the inside--taking the backseat apart to access the trunk and then pop the lock.

Another practial skill set that students learned is budget for buying a car. They learned that there is more than looking at the sticker price. In a project that included researching buying a car online, they also had to budget money for maintenance and insurance.

Other topics included learning about the history, design, and inner workings of cars from the early days of electric and gas to today’s fossil fuel, electric, hydrogen, and hybrid cars. The class also spent one day visiting a car museum and "grilled" their lunch on the engine of a car. They also created model cars and started their own toolbox with some tools to take home.

Middle school students spent these two weeks in January participating in two half-day courses. So in addition to studying about cars, they and their classmates studied drama, life on the frontier, cooking, batik textitles and fabric art, legoland, and mystery behind games.