GP...what??

One couple who made a visit to my C@P Site in St. Joseph’s Lakeside Community Center, 2752 Ohio Road, 867-2626 were headed on a trip, and had recently purchased a GPS unit and needed help with setting a course for them to follow.  I played around with the buttons for a little bit in an attempt to figure it out. After they had given me some addresses for places they planned to stop at, I had their GPS loaded up with the addresses, and showed them how to use it. I also showed them how to put in their final destination of the trip, and their home address for the way home. When they arrived home, I checked with them and the trip went excellent, and not a single thing went wrong with the GPS, and by the time they got home, they were able to put in their own destinations and go wherever they wanted to. Through this experience I learned a lot about GPS technology, as well as the search engine, Google, which will help me later in life. Also the visitors can now be independent when they have to travel.
By: Jake Delorey, St. Joseph’s C@P Intern

Boularderie Island Resource Centre

The provincial C@P Day this year fell on one of the BoularderieC@Psite’s semi-weekly children’s Cyber Camps. We decided to hold a Walkabout-themed Cyber Camp, in keeping with the theme of Digital Health and Wellness. All of the children wore pedometers and competed to take the most steps in the course of the camp. We made an obstacle course outside and set up games that would allow them to maximize their steps. We advertised the special Cyber Camp through flyers and an information bulletin on CBC Radio’s Information Morning.

We had nineteen children, the most for a Cyber Camp so far this year. They were very excited about wearing the pedometers for the duration of the camp, and increased their physical activity in order to increase their step count, chasing each other around outside and checking with their friends to see who was in the lead.

We held free computer time in the C@P site to begin the day and showed them how to use the pedometers. The children got very involved in the obstacle course relay-race outside, cheering on their teammates. We had a snack inside, and headed back out for ring toss and water balloon games. In order to prevent anyone from overheating, we moved the games into the school gym after the water balloon games were finished, and continued with high-activity games that would help them raise their step count.

At the end of PlayCom, we checked all the pedometers as we put them away, and recorded the stepcounts on the board next to the child’s name. Every child got a prize, and the four children with the most steps were allowed to choose their prizes first, which seemed a good compromise between competition and inclusion. The total number of steps taken by all the children was 104 739, which converts to about 79 km. The C@P site income from the Cyber Camp was $47.50. One of the children enjoyed the pedometer so much that we loaned one of the pedometers to her mother through the Walkabout lending program.
By Sadie Richards, youth intern, Victoria County C@P Sites Association

Courtesy of the  Thinking C@P / Pensons P@C Nova Scotia C@P Newsletter