Thousands of future Hornets swarmed Fullerton College Friday morning for the 26th year in a row. Kindergartners from Fullerton, La Habra and Anaheim school districts participated in KinderCarminata. This event gave 1,500-1,700 children the opportunity to visit a college and experience variety of interactive learning stations while gaining knowledge about college and future careers.
KinderCarminata allowed young students to kick start their dreams of attending college and starting a career by providing unique stations as well as demonstrations that consisted of Natural Sciences, Psychology, Drones, Art, Engineering and Technology, Kinder Symphony, an obstacle course and many more.
The event was founded by Galal Kernahan and the Los Amigos of Orange County, bringing light to Cesar Chavez and his accomplishments. Chavez, a man of great significance in United States History is an advocate for education for all, which can be appreciated by students of all ages.
With the help of Fullerton College faculty, students, administrators and staff, each interactive station was able to run smoothly. The kindergartners wore bright smiles on their faces and expressed voices of excitement and eagerness to learn as they moved from station to station.
Mellissa Hafer, this year’s event coordinator explained, “The teachers were given lessons to give to the children regarding Cesar Chavez and his accomplishments, along with other community leaders, to prepare them before they came. The important thing for the kids is to be focused on thinking about the fact they can go to college for sure and be thinking about what they want to be when they grow up.”
At the Natural Science station, which many of the kids loved, they were able to partake in a soda and mentos experiment. Children volunteered to drop the mentos into the soda bottle which created pressure in the bottle due to a process called nucleation. The soda squirted high into the air and drew a thrilled reaction from the Kindergartners.
A new station that was added this year was Kinder Symphony, a 70 piece orchestra that played live for the kids to enjoy.
Although it was her first year directing the event, Hafer stated that from looking at videos from the past and speaking to people, the event had grown in size and the activity stations had changed and updated. She noticed that Science and Music evolved greatly over the years.
William Pinedo, a teacher from Betsy Ross Elementary mentioned, “This is my second time here and there are a lot more events and activities with more students helping out. This time we got to go into more classrooms and it is more spread out through the campus. The kids really liked the soda bottle experiment, going into the lab, face painting, listening to stories. They’ve enjoyed them all.”
A link containing information about Fullerton College KinderCarminata may be found below.