Students at Francois Lake Elementary School (FLES) have dispelled the myth that internet videos lead children to do little more than stare at screens all day.
On Feb. 20, Ginger Moyah, who teaches Grades 4-5 helped put on an exhibition in the gymnasium of the students’ own amusement park of games, which they built themselves out of cardboard and craft and household items.
“In the new curriculum there’s a piece called Applied Design Skills and Technology. Trying to get younger kids to get their hands on things and learn more about producing a finished product,” Moyah told Lakes District News. “They have to design it, build it and tweak it and work their way through any problems.”
Her inspiration for the project is a YouTube video called Caine’s Arcade that sparked a global movement. In 2011, nine-year-old Caine Monroy spent his summer vacation building cardboard arcade games inside his father’s auto parts shop in Los Angeles. A customer named Nirvan Mullick, who happened to be a filmmaker tried the boy’s arcade games and eventually made a short film about it.
The film was posted online on April 9, 2012 and went viral, receiving more than 1 million views in the first 24 hours. Mullick made a scholarship fund for Caine, aiming for $25,000. But the popularity of Caine’s video eventually saw more than $240,000 raised for him and the formation of the non-profit Imagination.org, which helps lead annual Global Cardboard Challenge events to engage children in creative projects.
Moyah, who is originally from Grassy Plains has done Caine’s Arcade events with her students for the last three years. She worked in 100 Mile House before coming to Francois Lake.
The Caine’s Arcade movement has caught on in schools in other parts of British Columbia as well.
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At Francois Lake, students from Grades 4-7 – some working alone and some with partners – made more than 20 cardboard contraptions including a basketball shootout game, Pac-Man, a lego race, a whack-a-mole game called Wackit and a fishing game called Fish Topia.
“There was another cool one called Finding Dory. The kids climbed in with a flashlight and they had 30 seconds to find Dory,” Moyah explained.
The arcade builders gave out their own prizes for the winners such as little craft tokens and candy, and one girl made figures from the video game Minecraft using hot glue and cardboard.
Around 90 students joined the event and some younger siblings of the Grade 4-7 students participated too, as well as students from Grassy Plains school.
“The gym was just buzzing with excitement. The kids were so excited to share what they created and the younger kids were excited to try them out,” Moyah said.
The arcade initiative didn’t just cultivate students’ ingenuity and basic engineering skills, but also opened a window onto the commercial side of engaging with customers.
“Some of my students were bummed out because of where they were in the gymnasium. So they learned a bit about placement and marketing and how to make products flashy and fun.”
The games also helped bring a few children out of their shells.
“Several really shy kids in my class were just talking away when they shared the rules [of their games]. They can practice communication. Some of those same kids would struggle to stand up and tell a story. Those barriers were dropped because they were having so much fun.”
Blair McBrideMultimedia reporter
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