Science Camp, Take 2!

It looked a little different this year, but Bug and I got to do science camp together again this summer. We ended up only holding it for two days because sign ups were a little light, but in the end, we had a big enough crowd to make it worth it for the two of us and we got to have fun with the kids.

The first day, we played with sound--made a wave demonstration, musical instruments, and learned about how sound travels.

We even had one of the campers demonstrate the sound waves with her harp!

And the second day was all about catapults and trebuchets!

Bug built a trebuchet big enough to toss things 20-30 feet which was pretty fun for the kids.

He's so great with the kids, and with the science. I couldn't do these camps without my college kids!

The kids loved designing and testing their mini-catapults.

And then we spent each afternoon in the pool.

This really is the best set up for a camp--plenty of space for all the activities that we want to do and the kids love swimming and just getting to hang out and have fun together. And it helped Bug get a little closer to his financial goals for the summer. Between two summers of lifeguarding, teaching private swim lessons, and these camps, he's going to be pretty close to what he needs for his mission and his part of school this past year. He's worked hard for it!

Boat Physics: Camp, Day 4

This was, arguably, the best day of camp. The kids were so into the activities we were doing, and because our final science activity involved the pool, it was the first day that everyone got in to swim! If I do another summer camp, I'm going to be sure to figure out more ways to incorporate the pool into our actual lessons.

We started off with a fun bouyancy activity--they had to guess if they thought a watermelon would float or sink, and most of them were wrong--doesn't really matter how heavy something is, but how dense it is and that watermelon made a nice splash and then floated.

Then, the groups split up and worked on different activities that have to do with bouyancy. The middle group did a lab with various types of rocks, figuring out their density using water displacement, and then tested to see if any floated (some got close, but not quite.)

The middle schoolers took some notes on the various factors that play into bouyancy before they started their main project.

And the youngest group made predictions on whether fruits would float or sink and then tested out their hypotheses.

All the groups had a chance to make a cartesian diver, which moved up and down in the column of water depending on the amount of pressure applied--it's a fun toy!

The middle schoolers were largely focused on creating a boat design that they could make from cardboard that would be able to carry someone across the pool without sinking. 

The middle group joined them for the building and troubleshooting and the teams got to work with their creations.

They all had big ideas of how to create the best design

and it was fun seeing what they came up with.

While they worked on that, the youngest group continued playing with the water tubs and had a chance to see how the titanic sunk by using an ice cube tray to represent the bulkheads in the ship. Once water entered the front couple, it pulled the ice cube tray down, letting water into more and more compartments until the whole thing was at the bottom.

We only had one injury with the box cutters (which I had limited to the oldest kids only, but of course, there still was that one kid. . .). Luckily we had a couple of first aid trained lifeguards on duty.

The boat builders were limited to cardboard and duct tape for their boats, and only a few other supplies for the building.

(Bean stuck with the youngest group pretty much the whole week--they absolutely loved her, and she really enjoyed working with them, too.)

And the final products! This group one for most unique shape!

These guys had a solid contender!

Another solid design!

And the most questionable choice of design--they pretty much just grabbed a box and did a few things to reinforce it, including trying to create a bulkhead space at the bottom, but none of my suggestions could convince them to consider the height to width ratio, haha.

They got their boats down to the pool,

and lined up at the starting point. We didn't really emphasize the racing part--more of the challenge to actually make it across the pool, which was going to be enough of a feat!

And it was a challenge for sure! 

They had so much fun trying to make their way down the pool, some more underwater than above.

But three of the four boats made it, and two were in good enough shape for all the other kids to have a turn trying them out after the initial race.

The fourth boat technically made it to the end, too, 

but it was a soggy lump of cardboard by then, haha.

Eventually, they all ended up waterlogged.

But the kids had so much fun with this whole thing,

and it got everyone in the water, including the kids who hadn't wanted to swim.

Bean and Bug didn't want to miss out on the challenge.

They cheated a little and wrapped their whole bottom in foil, which made for a very secure vessel.

Enough that all four of the youngest group were able to get in together!

Most of the kids wanted to try out this boat, too.

Seriously one of the most fun science challenges--I'm thinking maybe next year we try some bridge building!

Protists and Fungi: Camp, Day 3

Day 3 was so much better! Not that things were bad, but getting rid of the cell phones was the right thing, and even the kids who thought they would rather be on their phones than participate in any of the extra activities quickly found things to do and seemed to be enjoying themselves. I still had one ask if he could use his phone at lunch ("No, there are friends here--talk to people.") and still had a couple who opted to sit out at swim time, but they did the extra arts and crafts I had out, or read one of the books I'd brought on our topic of the day and played science games.

But first, we got to talk about our next two kingdoms, which included one of my favorites: Fungi!

The two oldest groups did a yeast lab after we talked about the three types of fungi.

This one is always a big hit--easy way to see that yeast really is alive when it metabolizes sugar and produces a gas.

And the contrast between when sugar is present and not present is drastic.

They shared their work with the younger kids and explained what it showed.

And the younger kids shared what they had been doing--which was taking our yeast dough,

and rolling out naan for us to have with snack.

The kids did a great job making these for us.

and snack was yeast naan and butter or hummus, plus mushrooms, which about half the kids were willing to try.

Then we did some work with the protists kingdom,

trying to identify some of them from photographs under the microscope. I was hoping to actually use microscopes and find our own in pond water, but I was having a hard time finding anything in the water I had, so we opted for something less frustrating.

The youngest group made protists from playdough 9and then branched out into cats and surfers and all kinds of things, haha.)

And the older groups learned about the basic anatomy of a paramecium.

I am seriously so happy with how well this space has worked for us. We have great shade up under the trees and two tables for spreading out or two groups working together, plus the pop up and table on the grass and the three tables around the pool deck--it's been just right!

Our final activity after lunch was a fungi demonstration.

The students were each given a ball of yard that represented the mycellium which is the main part of a mushroom that is underground.

They had to travel to different red cups which held their "food" and needed to gather 4 different types of food, wrapping their yard around the post of every cup that they visited.

When they found all four, they had gathered enough energy to produce a fruiting body (mushroom) and stepped out of the network and planted their "mushroom" (we used the cocktail umbrellas.) It was fun to see how the network expanded and got all tangled up, and then how they created a fairy ring of mushrooms in the end.

At the end, it turned into a free-for-all with the kids throwing their balls of yarn back and forth across the space, and they had so much fun trapping some of the students in the tangle of "mycellium."

Pool time was more fun today because we had more kids in there, without the phone distractions.

We did have one kid who didn't get to swim (mom's orders for the day), but he had fun hanging out with the lifeguard until his mom picked him up.

Most of them are more than ready for the pool by the time we let them in.

It's been a good balance of science and free time. Even though some kids could swim the entire day and not get tired of it, having somewhere between 1.25-1.5 hours is just right for the group as a whole.

Can't wait for tomorrow's activity!