At Burholme charter school,
a discovery of the unknown

By Jon Campisi
Times Staff Writer

Cambria Graham is excited about school. And it shows. After all, how many 9-year-olds enthusiastically describe the science behind cloud formation? Or the life cycle of a butterfly?
But at the Global Leadership Academy Charter School in Burholme, this type of excitement seems to be the rule, not the exception.
Graham’s explanation about earthly gases came during the school’s third annual science fair last week. Students showcased projects they began working on six weeks earlier.
"They love it. They look forward to it every year," said Michael Connor, a fifth-grade teacher and chairman of the science fair.
For Graham, it was a chance to show what she has learned throughout the year, as well as the knowledge she gained while working on the group project with her fellow third-graders.
"I learned that clouds are part of the water cycle," the articulate youngster said while describing the project she helped create.
The project was designed to show how clouds form, and visitors to the booth were treated to a demonstration by the youngsters. Materials included a glass jar, water, a rubber glove and matches.
First the matches are lit. They are dropped into the small amount of water at the bottom of the jar. A rubber glove is placed on top to seal the jar, with the fingers of the glove dangling inside. A student then places his or hand inside the glove, and pulls the glove in and out, essentially creating a small cloud, or gas-like haze, inside the jar.
"It takes a lot of teamwork to do that project," a pleased Graham said.
Classmate Keneshia Davis, 8, said she enjoyed working on the project because it was hands-on. "It was very exciting for me to do," she said.
Davis has aspirations to maybe work in a laboratory one day, she said, and this experience has helped her understand what a career in the sciences might look like.
Graham has dreams of her own, and her description of what she would like to create one day shows she clearly thinks outside the box. As she describes it, she would like to "create the first school with anything a child can think of."
An example, she explained, would be a learning institution with traditional classrooms at one end and a museum-type section at the other.
"This is how teaching should be done," Connor said of the school’s educational model, which encourages students to be more involved in the process. "Look how engaged and excited they are about learning everything."
In addition to the Global Leadership Academy Charter School in the Northeast, which has 200 students, there is a campus in West Philadelphia with more than 300 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
At the Northeast school, third-grade student Cesar Mosquera, 9, who worked alongside Graham and Davis, equally enjoyed learning how clouds are formed. But he also relished the chance to work with his classmates.
"I like it because it was a group project," he said.
After describing the cloud project, the group of third-graders walked into the hallway to proudly show off some of the other things being done at the school. A common theme here was living organisms.
"We’re taking care of animals in our school, so we can see how they form," said 8-year-old Samantha Troute. "We keep a lot of animals in our school to keep them safe."
In the hallway were incubators containing chicken eggs, numerous fish tanks, a tadpole display, butterfly cage and plants in various stages of growth.
"The more sunlight a butterfly gets, the more they move around," Graham said.
Some of the other projects on display at the science fair touched on such topics as fossils, how waves are made, why sport drinks are bad for you, volcano formation, how beans grow, which liquid weighs the most and the water cycle.
Academy director Orrika Blanding said each kindergarten through third grade class in the school was required to do a group project, while those in grades four through seven worked on individual projects.
The teacher of each class had the task of selecting a topic for the students to explore.
Two days after the science fair, students who showed exemplary work won trophies during an awards ceremony. And while not everyone took home a trophy, Blanding assured the students that their accomplishments did not go unnoticed.
"Everybody’s a winner," she said. "Next year you’ll have another science fair, and you’ll have the opportunity to win a trophy." ••
Reporter Jon Campisi can be reached at 215-354-3038 or jcampisi@phillynews.com