Children's University

Hello, I'm Instructor Engin Demir. I work as a faculty member in the child development program of Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University Health Services Vocational School. I am also the director of Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University Child Education Training and Research Center. Children's universities were first established in 2002. In Turkey, the first one was opened in 2009, for the first time in Ankara. Our university started its activities in 2019 with the decisions taken in 2018. All children between the ages of 7 and 17 can participate in the activities at the Children's University. However, we plan different activities for our students of different age groups. Our Children's University aims to bring your children together with activities focusing on science, art and sports. In addition, it aims to establish the concept of the university for students. As children are not very familiar with the concept of university or the concept of university students, they learn about them through these activities.. Apart from this, student's participation in educational activities outside of school rather than just studying at school improves many of their skills. Some of these are skills such as critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, analytical thinking skills and life skills. For these reasons, Children's University aims to help our students understand the concept of university life, improve their life skills, and contribute to their university preferences in the coming years. We organize summer and winter events at Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University Children's University. In winter events, we bring together student groups at Bandırma University with students at schools in Bandırma, and our students organize various activities at schools. Apart from that, students come to our university for a few weeks and participate in activities during the summer. In our body awareness activity, various tests are carried out in the laboratories of the Physiotherapy Department of our university to measure the motor skills, balance skills and physical conditions of our students. We also have an e-sports event. In addition, workshops such as social skills workshops, entrepreneurship workshops, engineering workshops, and design workshops were held. In all of these workshops, our students took part in all activities based on the principle of learning by doing and experiencing, and they were active in all of the activities. We paid a lot of attention to this. We did not want to students to be passive listeners.. On the contrary, we attached great importance to active role-playing. Of course, the activities are not just cognitive activities. In addition, we wanted art and sports related activities. We have a painting workshop where our students paint. Apart from that, we had sporting events. In addition, activities such as horse riding and archery are also offered. We try to diversify and increase our activities every year and try to reach more students. I wish success to students who will take the university exam.