Duke University Students Hold First-Ever Splash

This February, Duke University became the fifth college campus to hold a Splash program, drawing over 120 Durham-area students.

Sophomore Alice Yen, a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar, first heard about Splash through a friend who was contacted by Learning Unlimited (LU), and she became interested in bringing a Splash program to the Triangle area.

"The innovative approach Splash took to extend learning beyond the traditional high school curriculum caught my interest," Yen said.

Yen assembled a team of ten student leaders and twenty volunteer teachers to run Duke Splash. The team was mentored by LU volunteers Daniel Zaharopol and Luke Joyner, but the program was Duke's to design and lead.

"Luke and Dan helped with little details like parking to big picture things like building a solid leadership team," Yen said. The mentorship included e-mails, phone calls, website support and maintenance, and a week-long on-site visit before and after the program.

Duke's program was the first Splash to include team-building activities along with regular classes. Before lunch, all students together participated in either an engineering challenge or a puzzle-solving competition.

"It's the first time I've ever seen this kind of community at a Splash, and it's because of their unique decision to bring everyone in the same room and share lunch and a learning experience," said Zaharopol, himself a veteran of over twenty Splash programs at five different universities.

By keeping to a tight budget and securing support from the B.N. Duke Foundation and the Jimmy John's sandwich chain, the Duke students ran a free program that attracted a socioeconomically diverse range of students.

Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. "You should have Splash more often. Definitely more than once a year. Please!" one student wrote.

Duke looks forward to holding its second Splash in Fall 2010 and building up additional programs.

For more information on Duke Splash, visit http://dukesplash.learningu.org.
To learn more about the B.N. Duke Scholars Program, visit http://www.bnduke.org.

Amazing Web Link

Each newsletter, we will bring you a thought-provoking link to an exceptional discussion about education. Agree or disagree — and we're not taking sides! — we think you'll find this fascinating.

Today's link is from Sir Ken Robinson giving a talk at the TED Conference, a world-famous meeting of minds discussing "ideas worth spreading." The talk is about creativity in schools, and you should absolutely watch it here. Of all the amazing talks at TED, this one has been "most favorited" — either tells you something about the talk or the audience at ted.com, who knows!

Interested in discussing the talk with others? We've started a discussion on our blog.

Upcoming Programs

April 3 — Splash at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Free.

April 17 — cSplash at New York University, New York, NY. Free.

April 17 — Splash at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. $40, fee waivers available.

April 17-May 15 — HSSP at MIT, Cambridge, MA. $20, fee waivers available.

Learning Unlimited is able to do what it does through the support of its community. Your donations enable us to maintain programs' websites and to support and mentor new and existing programs.

Please,

.