Over the years, Santa has been pulled into situations far more complicated than simple acts of Christmas kindness. But as any parent knows only too well, when it comes to potty training, no level of motivation is off the changing table.

We have a guest blogger today. Rides manager Lori had an interesting experience at the New Tech Institute in Evansville.

Eric (director of Special Events), Cathy (Director of Cleaning) and I recently visited a class of sophomores who are studying Africa.

Instead of simply lecturing about the country and its culture, the instructors created an interesting group project.

The project was to design a theme park that could compete with Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari as well as reflect the culture and history of Africa. The students were to draw a map of their park to display attractions themed for some of Africa’s World Heritage sites.

The students did a fabulous job. We saw so many innovative ideas!

One group had created a monkey ride that carried riders in barrels and another had rides located on a star-shaped island. Several of the parks were actually “built” in the shape of Africa. One park even offered free soft drinks (hmmm...where'd they come up with that idea?).

After speaking with the different groups, we each choose our favorite park.

Cathy, above, loved the comfortable seating options in one group and Eric, below, was all about the park that modeled closest to Holiday World.

My favorite design had themed sections from periods of Africa’s history. The group even drew their images by hand – and they were so detailed! It was wonderful to see so many neat ideas come together in the classroom – who knew a history project could be so much fun?