CSU hosts Third Annual Exceptional Science Fair for students with learning disabilities
COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Wednesday morning, Columbus State University’s Special Education Program hosted its third annual Exceptional Science Fair to provide a unique and interactive learning experience for students with learning disabilities in Muscogee county.
The event was held at the Oxbow Meadows Environmental Center, as a collaborative effort between Columbus State University (CSU) and the Muscogee County School District. To offer students with learning disabilities the opportunity to engage in hands-on science activities.
Mary Hendricks a Professor of Special Education at Columbus State University, says the science fair promotes inclusivity and accessibility in education, regardless of their learning abilities.
“They have created and developed science experiments for elementary students in self-contained classrooms in Muscogee County School District. We also have another group of CSU teacher candidates in special education that created and adapted textbooks that they put together, edited, wrote, and then they were doing a story time with the children from the elementary school as well,” shared Hendricks.
All of the activities and experiments showcased at the fair are curated by CSU students enrolled in the special education program. This hands-on approach provides students with experience that they can’t learn in a classroom.
Mortoria Neblett, a student teacher at CSU told WRBL that her favorite thing about working with the students is the flexibility of learning how to each exceptional learners capabilities.
“It gave me the opportunity to pretty much get my feet into the water to experience what I’m going to be dealing with because in special education, there’s a lot of things that you can’t expect. You can’t be trained on how to deal with different disabilities because you don’t know what to expect. So working in a school district allows me to get my foot in the water and it kind of gives me a heads up for what I’m getting myself into,” shared Neblett.
Hendricks tells WRBL that programs like these are crucial to help combat the special education teacher shortage in Columbus. She encourages those interested in adding their self-contained classrooms to the rotation series to contact CSU’s Center for Quality Teaching and Learning.
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