A Grade 10 student from Castor’s Gus Wetter School is using a school project to help her fellow students.
The assignment Aislynn Holland has been given as part of her Social 10 Social Action Project is to help solve a problem or contribute to a cause in the community.
For her project, Holland has decided to raise funds for a three-foot by 4.5-foot communications board for the school playground with markings on it for non-verbal students to point to, allowing easier communication.
The reason Holland chose this as her project hits close to home; her youngest sister communicates through sign language.
“That can be a barrier when people don’t know sign language,” said Holland.
According to Holland, once the board is in place kids who are non-verbal or who have a challenging time expressing themselves can just go up to it and point.
The design of the board is based on an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device.
An AAC device can be a laptop or tablet which a non-verbal person can use to express themselves by tapping on the appropriate icon and having the device speak for them.
“You can program buttons in it to talk for them,” said Holland.
So far, Holland has been raising funds by selling baking and she is close to the estimated $400 she needs for the materials.
Holland says that the Gus Wetter Principal, Jordan Rhodes, is on board with the project and if all goes well she will have the board installed by the time everything is due on June 1.
“Students at Gus Wetter School have been working on a number of different community action projects. Aislynn’s communication board for the Gus Wetter playground meets a need that many people would not know exists,” said Rhodes.
“Our hope is that her project will help our students and community to appreciate the varied needs of individuals and how coming together to support them benefits us all.”