welcome to discover a new feature a show geared at empowering women to be the best versions of themselves i'm your host fetes saunders i have two wonderful guests today and we're going to be talking about a very very interesting organization and some wonderful work that they are actually doing my guests today are dana smith jennings who is the founder of inventors village and also the person the star of the show to be on this miss lauren jennings because she was the reason why you started inventors fillets right that's absolutely right wow i'm so happy that you came today lauren so thank you so much for coming  so one of the things that happens is that we have so many kids who are really great at science but they have no i haven't you off really actually exploring this area off their lives and what has happened here through inventors village is that there is a nonprofit where individuals can actually come kids case kindergartner right thing or garden through eighth grade can actually come  have a wonderful time and learn new ways of doing science is also learn some life lessons that i just learned early before we started this and what we talk about that a little while so tell me a little bit more boat inventors feel hope this novel started so i am blessed with a daughter who loves science and plus with two children my older son steven who's a college student and my daughter lauren his in the third grade and they both love science and i'm not a science a person i'm more reading in the arts but my kids love science and it's been a joy to watch them want to explore and and put things together and take things apart and try to front things looking around the community there really wasn't a place for them to go you know there's if you're into sports there's a place to go if you're into dance there's a place to go but there is nothing really for children who really enjoy doing science or has more now than we've seen before their stem programs are not always affordable some of the the costs are really expensive so we just started doing experiments around the house and then friends would come over or friends would come over and we would start to be that house where the kids were gathering to try and do things and we got our science box and i said you know why not try to open this up to two other kids veteran two tours in iraq and afghanistan is a software developer and he's worked on his mobile apps and everything so he's he's come on board and and has helped us to really develop our curriculum and we've gotten other educators who review our curriculum that we've been putting together but we've been doing a lot of different research so you know for a nominal fee kids can come for an hour and do a science experiment learn about the engineering design process or the scientific method and we do it in a simple and fun way but we try to teach the bigger lesson which is try fail and try again i love that i love that and you know i want to explain that a little bit more in a few minutes but i want to hear that inventor because when i went on your website i was so floored by just that you know what your definition of with an infant or so for us if you've had a good idea if you've tried some thing if you've tried to build something if you've tried to create something then you're an inventor it's i think we need to demystify that word and invent it when we say inventor we think we immediately go to go to thomas edison we immediately go to the great big scientists that we know but these inventions started small everything starts somewhere as an idea it's just an idea except and it's usually out of necessity so in our house especially with more and nothing gets thrown away a paper towel tube can be something that she will use a cardboard box is something that she will use the springs in you know of or you know boxes any materials that are left over or something that she's going to build with us so those creations are her inventions whether it's something practical useful or the you know you have creative names to so she has creative name so we don't we don't want to limit the kids thinking so if you come up with a good idea then you're an inventor if you've invented something or thought of something i've had a great idea or how to improve something you're an inventor and we always talk about in our workshops especially with the engineering design process that you try it you test it you improve it and you keep going and i was telling the story of did you know that cars didn't used to have seat belts can you imagine that cars didn't have seat belts and it was through testing and failing and realizing hey we need to do something to make sure that people are safe more always improving and if you think of just how you know cell phones how refrigerators how things that we use every day have improved over time it all started with a simple idea of you know the refrigerator way to keep food cold and make it safe to eat and now you can talk to your refrigerator and place an order and have it sent to the grocery store i didn't read so i'm sure when when the refrigerator was first invented there was no concept of that day exactly so it all starts somewhere so we try to get them to think in terms of simple and see where it can where it can go but where you know what i also know is d a is that you don't have to make something from scratch to be an inventor is to me proving  idea as you said that car existed there was no seat belts so somebody added that to it and look how many other features now we have g p s i don't know how i would i was surviving with all my g p s prior to this you have all of these different things that have been additions are improving and it's all about improving and i really love your with this name again i think you need a finger need or i'm over that exactly and the other thing that we do with inventors village is on a small scale we're teaching them about peer to peer review which is an which is what scientists do they scientists don't work in a vacuum in a bubble they share their ideas they share their research they get feedback from other professionals and scientists in their field  so when we're doing something for example the watercraft experiment that the kids love where they maybe laurel talk about the watercraft experiment later but we have that the kids get feedback from each other about what worked  what didn't work for them how can we make yours improve and give each other ideas and supporting so where do in that team building as well so no one's working on their own and nobody's we're not competing against each other there's friendly competition who's watercraft is going to do the best job but we're all cheering for each other so when someone's getting ready to test their watercraft everyone stops what they're doing to watch the person who's going and cheer them on and root for that minutes great to see the kids get excited and then want to go back and improving or get an idea of like oh i saw what worked you know i saw it work for more and let me see if i can make an adjustment to mine are so what didn't work for more and so now i need to adjust mine that is a because you're teaching them life skills when you go to work you have to team team you have to be a part of a team so you learn communication skills you're learning there so many different skills that you're teaching life skills that you're teaching in these activities that you're actually doing with this with this right and we're not using high tech equipment right right now you know hopefully as our program grows and as we get more you know exposure and more donations we'll be able to expand our program we definitely want to start doing coding with the kids with with her wells background in computer science and we definitely want to do more in that in that area but right now we're we're starting simple and small just like all the awesome so basically you're saying to me that although my song i don't think a failure because i could learn something from what what happened right wow what a lesson you know a lot of a lot of adults don't even realize this and you and third grade have know that it's not a failure is still a success because it can learn something from that that's huge that's really huge so that you so much for sharing that so you have some other programs that you do and the program when i was on your website i saw that you have curriculums developed so can you talk a little bit about so what we're doing for the month of june is every friday after school we rip the kids by age so we do can do garden through second grade and then we're doing third through f friday it's for five weeks every friday in the month of june a different experiment so we'll do a different topic so we'll do magnets and circuits a lecture joe and our final week will be slim because kids can't get enough fine phone through my phone be like live right me through so we're going to try different kinds of slime and we're not just going to make the sign but we're going to talk about the science of slime and why does slime work and that slime is a polymer i'm going to talk about you know which is really just corn starch and water but we'll talk about the difference between being you know that unique material that's a solid and a liquid when you touch it and and all of those things so we have fun and we make a mass and everybody wears their lab coats and their goggles and the kids look adorable but we want them to know that when you're here you're this is your lab and we take things very seriously and safety first and you know when we're building our catapult him or launching things you know we go over the safety rules that even when you go home with your catapult you're not to launch your projectiles at your brother and sister that we launch soft objects that we wear protective gear and there's a reason for that  you know it's it's funny but safety comes first and you know the feedback that we've gotten has been so wonderful but what we need to do is really get the word out we need more we need more volunteers who you know in the science community whether that be college students or educators who will come and do some work workshops science is not my background but it's become my passion because of my family  it's something that i want to share with others because learning science just prepares you for so many different things to the concepts of of trying again and starting over and improving and it's such a good foundation  but i would love to have more educators on board to help us build the different curriculum that we want to put out there and to share their ideas donors who can help us either with their time resources space the way that legacy life mentor has financial donations so that we can keep the costs down for the children who are enrolled right now we're able to keep the costs down to just twenty to thirty dollars per student who come who come for an hour but that's really just covering the cost of materials and then maybe you know the transportation to bring the things and printing out materials so we're truly a nonprofit we are you know a lot of the times we're coming out of our own pockets for a while and i and kyler who's our other board member because we don't want to ever tell a child that we can't run the workshop right as we didn't get enough enrollment  so we just find a way to make it happen and that's what would make it work is because if your intention is your intention is to give these young people an opportunity to explore science and to to learn some life lessons that can actually read that will enhance their lives as they move forward how has the doing this changed your life i'm just curious i think it's changed my life in so many different ways i think you know most importantly as being an example to my kids that if there's not something there for you you'll make it if if you need if there's a need and it's not being fulfilled and you can't find it out there then you create it that's one great listener right there so we don't have to sit around and wait for someone else then we can just and i remember more and asking me when i said we're just going to make our own company we're going make our own organization and she said can we do that  absolutely do that we can absolutely do that everyone else you know has done that and we can do that yes awesome so you know coming from a corporate background has really helped you know with a different companies that i've worked for so having that background this helps with preparing me for some of the things that we've faced but it's given me this great opportunity that is and have is to i'm always working with lauren we call more in our junior advisory board member like that she tests everything for us so we get her perspective about what's fun before we went out and started doing the workshops we would have her sitting there at the table so that we could time how long it would take to do this so we knew how much time to a lot for a workshop to see where her struggles and challenges were so we knew you know in the age range what was the right age range we did invite her friends over and ask them you know to try out different things and just observe them playing and interacting so that we could you know get a sense for what we were doing what worked what didn't you know and she was probably sick of doing a catapult over and over and over again and she would get so excited to see what new materials are getting and what would be inside sort of would be another lab coat but she just the closeness that it's brought to us and for me to say to her this is your company too this is your organization too and that you know for her to be the inspiration and then hopefully one day to pass that torch to have her carry it forward awesome or not yeah or or not but to know that right now this is where we're at and this is what we're doing death off but i'm so excited about this so lauren can actually another question so for kids who like science what i do you have an advice for them and your project doesn't work try again tell me oh perfect wow that is that is a great life lessons that decades because so often when we do stuff and it doesn't work out we get frustrated and we just put it aside right and versus maybe if we tried one more time would actually come up with the answer right so that's the great advice for for  kids so when do how do people contact your organization so inventors village dot org is our web site you can go on and sign up for workshops you can donate you can contact us at info at inventors village dot com there's a contact us button on the page if you're interested in donating time resources you've got an idea that you'd like to share with us or you'd like us to come to your  school or we do that we don't we don't just stay at legacy life center well they've given us space it's great so that we can have people come to us but we've been able to be mobile because we've literally got a science box so we load everything up where we load everything into the trunk of a car and we load up the lab coat and we travel and we can bring it to wherever you are as well and that's the most important part for me is we want to make sure that we're hitting under served communities and you know by being stationary all the time in one space just doesn't it doesn't reach everyone i mean ideally in the future we'd be able to have pop up inventors villages all over wow i love you guys you know we have an army of volunteers who will you know take our platform and take our model and have that in their community that would be great but until that interested in hearing more about us and maybe having us work with them for some after school programs which would be great but there are you know so many communities that we'd like to to get into and help but we're starting small and hopefully as the word spread to me can get more volunteers will be able to do that and that's the way to start small i know the king's when you you know this works this isn't work and and so you develop and use the word model that's what you create you're creating a model so starting small creating the model so that you can act replicated in the future absolutely that's awesome this is the great work you guys are doing and that you so much for your insights so and that also thank you for so of course as i am also a parent and sometimes you know our kids show us our share certain things with us and we're so caught up in life you know surviving and exaggerate that we don't take the time to really look at what what did the gift that they're giving us are what they're saying there is a need here can you help me but you took the call you had you had the inside to be able to do that to listen to laurie and see that she really love science and say you know other kids could benefit from from this there are other kids out there we love science also and we could all work together to really make this something wonderful for them wow that takes a lot that takes a lot of courage on your part i must say so oh no i think as a  ball you'll do anything bigger than a little bit of selfishness right so go play with kids your own age i don't want to always be the one to build the rocket but that was you know one of the first she more and goes through different phases of what kind of science she's really into and when she was really into space you know she was writing down you know she wanted to be an astronaut so she made her list of things she needed to do to be in ashkelon she wrote step one build a rocket ship and i was like they give you the rock and then when you're an  the dining room table is our science table that is probably such an eyesore when you walk in because people don't always know and get it and i'm sure my husband would appreciate if that table was cleared off but that's where all of us that's where all the stuff that magic sat happening right so we've got batteries and wires and glue got all kinds of building material that's all you know time goes by when you're having fun and any closing remarks do you know anyone who is watching our viewers just visit our website find out what we're about and get in touch with us ok wow it is such with us there seem to be so many ways people could actually be a support to what you're doing is where people who are and find us on facebook talk about us share and come come by bring your kids that's all it's a fun time and the fact that we're at legacy there's plenty of things for the parents to do