A Summer of Innovative Design
This Summer was all about Learning through Gaming. During the Gaia Centre’s Summer camp, learners enthusiastically dived into the wondrous world of board games and video games. I hear you asking yourself: “What can learners gain from playing these games?”
Well, a lot.
Among learning strategy and problem-solving skills, a camp just for gaming allows tons of room for creative expression.
Design played a very big role in the Summer Camp Art lessons. The learners immersed themselves into understanding the many aspects of design, shapes & their various uses in our everyday life through character design, typography & clay making.
Why should children learn design? Well to name just a few reasons:
- Children learn to put their original ideas to paper and see them come to life. It involves an important comprehension of various concepts such as colour theory, shape & purpose. For instance, children created their very own characters while playing Dungeons and Dragons! They captured the personalities of their characters when they put pencil to paper. Children have an ample supply of unique ideas and narrowing it down to their best one is key.
- Purpose of design is a vital cog in the wheel of design. Learners channelled their creativity when designing their very own chess pieces after a fun game of strategy. Their chess pieces were created with clay. Learners had to design their 3D chess pieces, with a technical purpose in mind. Aspects such as weight, height and structure had to be considered leading to a logical yet inspiring and creative design.
- Typography is no doubt an extremely influential aspect of design. Right from the most memorable Disney logo font style to the Arial font we use on our word documents, typography plays an extremely important role in how memorable words can be. While learning new words through Scrabble & Vocab Taboo, The Gaia Centre’s Camp gave learners an introduction to typography. Children have some of the most enjoyable ideas when it comes down to this topic. For example, one of our learners chose the word Jump and drew ‘J-U-M-P’ on a trampoline, in a way that made the letters seem like they were jumping off it. Certainly very memorable.
- Students learn to take constructive criticism when designing. This is a crucial part of becoming better in any skill you choose to do and can prove to be an important personal characteristic that can positively serve the learner in many areas of life. When designing, it is important to get a perspective from different viewers, this could solve a problem and also give children an excellent opportunity to explain the concept behind their design.
Designing is empowering and gives learners a challenge, a goal, and recognition for their innovations. It gives learners confidence and a sense of belief in their skills.
The Summer Camp has been a portal into a new world for learners to let their imaginations soar. Design opens up the possibility for new ideas and makes way for new inventions, and we at Gaia are excited for a future of creative individuals.