Fourth-graders at Ridgedale Elementary School didn’t pay any mind to those dreary clouds on the other side of the classroom window Wednesday afternoon.
Inside, the light of learning was literally shining forth.
That’s because Becca Fint-Clark was making like a candle-powered MacGyver in the front of the room.
Fint-Clark, who leads 4-H youth education efforts for the WVU Extension Service, was showing students how to fashion a working flashlight out of materials you might find in the kitchen junk drawer.
Her recipe for illumination? A popsicle stick, battery, copper tape and a paper clip.
“This might be our coolest one yet,” she decreed — and that’s saying something.
Over the years, she and her colleagues have given primers to Monongalia County students on the rudiments of money management and the basics of writing computer code.
There have been interactive lessons on recycling, aerodynamics and just about everything else.
The current lesson is on electrical circuitry — what it is, and how it works.
“Tonight when they flip the light switch in their room, they’ll be thinking about the lesson,” the 4-H educator said. “That’s what we’re hoping.”
Fint-Clark and her colleagues have long had connections with the county district. They come up with the lesson and present it to school principals — who always manage to light up.
This season’s DIY flashlight lesson runs through the beginning of April, with other stops planned for the elementary schools of Mylan Park, Mason-Dixon, Suncrest, Brookhaven and Skyview.
As Fint-Clark says, the idea is to learn, and have fun, at the same time.
She’s powered by a teacher’s heartbeat herself.
Her mom, the late Stacy Shockley Fint, was a Rotary Exchange student for a year in Brazil as a Preston County high-schooler.
The future matriarch and educator came home with a fluency in Portuguese and an even greater passion for learning.
She taught English as a second language and later directed WVU’s Intensive English Program — where she ended up being a de facto mom to students from across the globe in Morgantown.
Forget flashlight, Fint-Clark remembers — Mrs. Fint was a klieg light.
“I always want to make her proud,” her daughter said.
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