Wesley students spice up open-day w/insect food
They made sure they conformed to the normal open day activities: profiling their academic achievements and making sure there were plenty of games and prizes to impress and entertain their peers. But the students of Wesley College added a new ingredient to the recipe of getting primary-schoolers interested in enrolling in the institution. News 5’s Ann-Marie Williams has the story.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
Wesley College, Belize’s oldest secondary institution situated on Yarborough Road in Belize City, held its open day at the high school today. During opening ceremonies, Rev. Karen Durant of Wesley Methodist Church blessed those present and area representative mark Espat was the guest speaker. Espat reminded the students that four key values are critical to their success not only at Wesley College, but beyond. Among them are a sense of balance and teamwork.
Mark Espat, Area Rep., Albert Division
“If you focus just on the classroom and you forget about what happens outside of the classroom, it will handicap the success that you can achieve. And so I encourage you to get involved in extra-curricular activities, to get involved in sports, to get involved in your various clubs, to get involved in the community. Second and critical I am sure to today’s open-day, is teamwork. Both in my experience in the private sector and in my experience in government, I think there is no greater value than the ability to work with people. I know that today is a product of departments, it’s a product of teamwork, and it is one of the best education’s that you can receive.”
Today was a day for the public and visiting schools to acquaint themselves with the various projects produced by the students; not only in the sciences, but also in the humanities. Here’s one that will certainly put the fear factor in you; “Insects as Food”. Rhonda Middleton explains.
Rhonda Middleton
“It contains some important things that we need in our diet. And if you’re in a situation that you don’t have food, for example in the wilderness or lost, if you see a grasshopper you can easily just cook it on a stone or something, or use termites, eat them raw or even eat the grasshopper raw. They contain carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, fat, all different essential things.”
How about trying a bit of this chocolate covered grasshopper.
Student tasting chocolate grasshopper
“It tastes crunchy, but you feel the legs.”
These dancers would know, they’ve been on their feet since early morning depicting the Spanish culture through dance.
Evan Martinez
“It’s just a mixture of salsa, merengue and so together, so that it combines the song to the rhythm in the way you will move. So it’s just basically salsa, merengue and those, mostly Latin rhythms.”
A mathematician maze, using close to one hundred sheets was set-up by a group of math students headed by teachers Melvin Hewlett.
Melvin Hewlett, Math Teacher
“We were going to have a usual maze, but we’re going to incorporate math skills. So we’re gonna have a competition between two students trying to go through the maze. But throughout the maze, you will have stations where you meet a person and they will give you a math problem to do. So it’s not just an ordinary maze, but to help them to develop their math skills and also as a review.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“And if they’re met at that particular station and they can’t do the math problem?”
Melvin Hewlett
“At that point, we have a display board with the question, so you have a pen and paper and you work out the question. So if you get the question, we have a predetermined route for all the correct response, so if you go through the maze and you get all the correct responses, then that’s the shortest exit through the maze.”
However, if you get the question wrong you’re in for a longer time in the maze.
These students are interested in setting up a small business they’ve called Fruitilicious Juice Manufacturing. Genevieve Peters was at the head of the assembly line.
Genevieve Peters
“We just gathered all the raw materials like the orange, watermelon and tambran, and we mix them together and came up with the final product, which is friutilicious juice. We just placed the juice in those containers and then allowed them to go down in the bottles, and then the covers and the labels are applied.”
Budding female artists also had a chance to put the finishing touches on their masterpieces.
Ora Logan
“I’m painting a landscape with pine trees. And here you can see I’m mixing the different colours for the trees. I just like to capture the trees and the water together. I just like to paint realistic stuff.”
Ernestine Carballo
“This painting is a view of the dessert when the sun is out hot, very hot. It is a water-washed painting, and we use different brushes to come up with all the different details on the painting. To do this painting you have to have…because artists go with moods, and if you’re not in a joyous mood, then you don’t paint because the way you feel is the way you’re going to do your artwork.”
Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
