Video: Lowndes County Students Attend ‘Weekend’ School

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LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) — Most kids spend their Saturdays sleeping in or playing with friends, but some Lowndes County first through fifth graders are using their off day to experience learning in a creative way.

We head to Cook Elementary School in Columbus to find out why students are going to school on the weekend. It may look like a typical school day, but these students have been coming to class the last three Saturdays to learn about Chemistry and Physics. These first and second graders are learning about reaction solutions and how many water drops can stay on the head of a penny.

Second grader Jaleal Davis says the penny experiment was his favorite.

“How to make liquid sit on top of each other. It was cool,” says

After three Saturdays, Davis now knows chemistry can be fun.

“The text book don’t have that much for stuff and here we get a lot of fun stuff,” says Davis.

While the younger students learn about chemistry, the third through fifth graders are tackling physics.

Their project is something that impacts everyday life.

“We want to make sure that people when they drive cars to wear their seat belts,” says Kareena Patel.

After two weeks of building their car, Kareena and her partner test their engineering skills.

“I kind of knew it was going to crack a little bit because it was really tall. A small car that goes fast can get a lot of damage,” says Patel.

Program Coordinator, Dawn Dawkins says she’s enjoyed seeing each student learn how to connect science with their daily lives.

“It’s real world. It’s creative problem solving. It’s problem solving with your friends. It’s working in tams and groups and those are skills that are so very important to life in the real world,” says Dawn Dawkins.

The Discovery Academy may take place on Saturday, but the experiments prove students are having fun even on the weekend.

Saturday was the last day they met.