Page 12—SUSQUEHANNA TIMES David Winters works on a project called ‘‘The Howler.”” Mr. Loercher tells us that ‘‘the students love things that make noise and light up.” Randy Rannels and Russel Flowers hook up a counting device. School in the summer? Yes—and they like it, too! Why in the world would any high school student spend 22 hours each weekday morning, for two months, going to school over the summer? Someone mnct be forcing them to go. Right? Wrong! Ten students at Donegal High School have opted to spend their summer morn- ings in the classroom; taking a course called Summer Electronics. The Susquehanna Times reporter visited this class to find out why the students are there. ‘‘I do this to keep in shape for school,” laughed junior David Winters. ‘‘Because of this course I keep getting up early all summer.” “I’m here for the credit,”’ says senior Valerie Mc- Donald, ‘‘and I'm interested in working with computers. I'll have a pretty good jump on the subject if 1 study computer science in col- lege.”’ Sherry Suter likes the idea of having a course over the summer because ‘‘1 could never fit into my senior year all the courses that I want to take. This eases up things a bit.”’ Sherry plans to major in electrical engineering when she goes to college. The course is the only engineering one taught at Donegal High School. “The industrial arts program used to haved an electrical program, but it hasn’t been offered for several years now,”’ course instructor William Loercher says. Loercher teaches physics and chemistry at DHS and says that electronics is his hobby. All of the students seem to agree that the course is fun as well as informative. They feel that the class is more open and more relaxed than a regular class and, because the class is so small, each student receives plenty of attention. Bruce Bundy, a senior, sums it up best by saying ‘“When you want to learn it’s more fun.”’ Mr. Loercher agrees, and he believes that the students in his class want to learn. ‘““When you have a summer elective the students have got to be interested!”’ The idea for the class first came to Mr. Loercher when he realized that many of the science fair projects done by students in the spring required a knowledge of electric circuits. Loercher realized that there was no room for the course during the regular school year, so he approached principal Donald Drenner with the summer school idea. There were fifteen stu- dents interested at the onset of the course, but because of summer vacations and jobs several had to drop the idea. The only expense (¢ the students is the text book, NCR’s Basic Electronics Course. ‘““We don’t have fancy equipment and so we cannot do many of the experiments outlined in the book, but we ‘do all that we can,” says Loercher. The group first went through the text and is now working with integrated circuits. Magazines entitled 99 IC Projects and 101 Electronic Projects are strewn on desk tops. The students work individually on their projects. Loercher hopes to finish the course with computer work on a micro-processor given by Millersville State College. ‘““The real aim of this course is to prepare the student for the world he or she will live in,” says Loercher. ‘‘The computer is here to stay and in the not so far future everything will be controlled by computers. It is a very exciting time. Things are moving so fast that it is a full-time job just keeping up with the chang- es. *‘I feel that it is important for everyone to have a basic understanding of a field that will affect every part of our lives.” Russel Flowers, who plans to study electronics in the armed forces, agrees. “I'm getting the basics down with this course. And, I’m having fun!” Sherry Suter, left, helps Valerie McDonald test her digital counting project. July 16, 1980 Senior Bill Hall, at left, and instructor Bill Loercher together go over the results of an experiment. Bruce Bundy salvages electrical parts from an old piece of equipment. The parts will be used by the class in experiments and projects.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers