Promoting Leadership in Health for African Nova Scotians (PLANS) is a camp for African Nova Scotian teenagers interested in pursuing the health professions. The camp is in its fourth year, and this is the third year the W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library has been a stop for the campers as they explore different health professions at Dalhousie University.
Students in the Plans Prep Institute getting library instruction from Lucy Kiester.
In week one, we met the campers of the PLANS Prep Institute (PPI) – a new camp for 2017. The PPI is a post-secondary preparation program aimed at students who are going into post-secondary school or senior high and/or have participated in previous PLANS summer programming. These campers were investigating a particular case study over three days. Librarian Lucy Kiester provided a session on advanced Google searching, identifying quality information, searching the library catalogue, and correctly citing sources, activities designed to assist the campers in their research and presentation of the cases.
In week two, we met with the campers from the African Nova Scotian Health Sciences Summer Camp, for students in Grades 8–10. These were mostly first-time campers from across Nova Scotia. Lucy, along with the two Kellogg Library interns Alicia Whidden and Caroline Korbel, provided a three-station library orientation that students rotated through.
Scavenger hunt!
Stage one was a library scavenger hunt in the Kellogg Library and Tupper foyer. Students had 10 minutes to find a book in the stacks, identify founders of the medical school, talk virtually to a Dal librarian in New Brunswick, and more.
Stage two was a session on how to identify fake news on the internet, using resources like snopes.com, and comparing facts across unrelated news sources.
Stage three was a sit-down conversation, where students were asked to explore what is a library, and what a librarian does. This focused on how a librarian can help students with class work, as well as exploring different options available in a library — from eBook checkouts, to free classes or 3Dprinting.
More scavenger hunting.
Learning how to identify fake news.
Discussions.
The campers asked excellent questions and participated in lively discussions. We were very happy they included W.K. Kellogg Library in their camp experience. For more information about PLANS, visit www.dal.ca/health/plans