PUHI — Students from Kawakini New Century Public Charter School toured the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory on Friday to assist the Kaua‘i Community College Cognition Learning Team, or Cogs, in resolving issues created by a rascal Oompa Loompa loose in the factory.
“It’s Halloween,” said Trineen Lacaden of Cogs. “The learning unit has to be fun. Our focus is the senses — sight, smell and sound. In fact, it’s so much fun, some of the Kawaikini students volunteered to help create some of the factory parts, and Kyoko Ikeda-Chun and her International Students are taking over an entire section of the factory.”
These voluntary offers resulted in a series of workshops for the Kawaikini School fourth and fifth grade students to help them in creating portions of the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory.
According to Cogs, the first workshop had the Kawaikini students learning the term “gradient,” and a blending technique to design their own Wonka bar label. A second workshop had the students painting the candy cane trees and other props used in the factory tour.
The third workshop for the Kawaikini budding set designers and decorators involved learning about paper mache and what paper mache can be used for in creating art and crafting.
Armed with the task of resolving some of the problems created by the mischievous Oompa Loompa, the students started their tour in the Fizzy Bubble Room where they discovered the room turned everything green. The students needed to make the “fizzy lifting drink” to resolve the problem.
But, how do you find the items the recipe calls for by color? This was a challenge for sight.
In the Labeling and Packaging Room, the Oompa Loompa messed up the labels to the different candies. The Kawakini students had to rely on their sense of smell to tell the different candies apart so the proper labels could be applied — how do you tell a Kit Kat bar from a Twix bar just by using your sense of smell?
The international, or exchange, students were so impressed with last year’s presentations, they commandeered the Waterfall Room where the Oompa Loompa messed with the video feed resulting in portions of the Willy Wonka medley to drop out. Using homemade Glockenspiels, or tubing cut into various lengths, the Kawaikini students turned to their memory and hearing to recreate the missing tones in the music line.
The Cogs team will be joining a network of community groups like the Kaua‘i Museum, the Boys &Girls Club of Hawai‘i, the Mayor’s Employee Council and more to help the Royal Sonesta Kaua‘i Resort create a Royal Holiday that opens around Thanksgiving and be available for the community to enjoy through the holiday season.
The Kaua‘i Community College Cognition Learning center is a place where college students, faculty and staff can voluntarily invest their time and skills to bring innovative ideas to life, states a description by the Kaua‘i Community College. Cogs promotes individual creativity like “Science is Fun” by empowering student-led projects.
