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Our LearnersSpotlight on News focusing on students, staff

and schools in Pattonville

Animating student interests

Above, animator Doryan Nelson works with Ian MacDonald in Renate Kirksey’s class at Parkwood Elementary School. Far right, Nelson shows how some of students’ favorite cartoon characters are drawn. At right, Joanna Gary tries her hand at drawing different stages of anima-tion.

Students in Renate Kirksey’s first-grade class at Parkwood Elementary School got a crash course on animation when they returned from winter break. With the help

of a guest speaker and the popular video game character Pac-Man, students learned how some of their favorite animated characters are developed. They took the lesson further by creating their own short animation.

Kirksey invited Doryan Nelson, a senior majoring in animation at the Kansas City Art Institute, to speak to her class and intro-duce them to the field of animation. Nelson started his presentation by drawing some of the students’ favorite characters - SpongeBob SquarePants, Mario, Sonic and Batman - and then explained what animators do.

“We take the cartoons you love, make them move and put them on TV,” he said. “It’s a lot of hard work to pull these things off, but a lot of fun.”

After quickly outlining the process that takes place before animating even gets started, including scripting and storyboarding, Nelson gave the students some low-tech, hands-on experience with animating.

With a piece of paper in front of each student, Nelson taught the class how to draw the fully animated version of Pac-Man step-by-step. The students drew his body, face, arms, legs, boots and hands. Then, on another sheet of paper, the students traced everything except his right arm. Instead of drawing it the same as before, Nelson told them to draw it in a different position. When students flipped between the two pictures, it looked as if Pac-Man was waving to them. This finished product gave Kirksey’s students an example of how animation works.

One of Kirksey’s goals in having Nelson speak to her class was to introduce students to one of the many careers available in the science, technology, engineer-ing and mathematics (STEM) fields. She recognized that so many of her students are interested in cartoons or video games, which would be a gratifying career choice for them to learn about.

“STEM careers are the fastest growing occupations in the U.S.,” Kirksey said. “Introducing STEM careers at an early age provides students with real-world connec-tions - they can see themselves as an engineer, architect, marine biologist or animator. We (teachers) must trigger their interest in pursuing STEM fields. I hope to expose my students to as many careers in STEM as possible.”

Parkwood first-graders learn about STEM careers via guest speakers and hands-on learning

To do this, Kirksey has been presenting a variety of STEM fields and careers to her first-grade students. During the first trimester, a female architect visited the class. This coincided with the students learning about shapes in math. Afterwards, Kirksey had each student create his or her own plans for a house.

“I invited the guests for the children to have the opportunity to meet profession-als in STEM fields to make real world connections,” Kirksey said. “Throughout our learning, when applicable, we discuss STEM careers associated with our learning. The architect reinforced the students’ learning of shapes all around us.”

Next up, Kirksey is planning to host a visit by an engineer.

PHS students enjoy cooking demonstration, fresh vegetable samples

About 400 Pattonville High School students tried samples of fresh stir-fry vegetables during a cooking demonstration in their school cafeteria. Chef Perry Cage from Chartwells School Dining

Services visited the high school and sauteed vegetables in a variety of flavors for the students to taste.“This is an introduction to the students of what is coming next semester with our Chef2School

Program,” said Bridget Jordan, food service director for Chartwells at Pattonville. Pattonville began contracting with Chartwells this school year to manage the district’s food services program while retaining its own local food service employees. “We will periodically bring in chefs to perform display cooking in the serving line. It’s very exciting to the students to see the chefs working and to taste the food they prepare for us.”

The Chef2School Program kicks off at Pattonville High School in February. Jordan said that Cage’s demonstration cooking was well received by students: “The students enjoyed the stir-fry vegetables, several returning for seconds. We enjoyed many favorable comments and once again, many thank yous.”

Chartwells Chef Perry Cage, left, visited Pattonville High School for a demon-stration cook-ing event, during which students could sample fresh stir-fry vegetables.