When enjoying summer, it is important for children not to allow their minds to wander.
That won’t be a problem for those who have signed up for the Imagine ‘Boom! Bang! Splat! Camp.’
Mollie Napier, camp organizer for Imagine It, said the goal was to provide “a little more fun, a little more science” and to let children “know that science is fun.”
Science camps have been the pinnacle of Imagine It since opening, but things have been a bit slow this year. If Imagine What served as a children’s museum adjacent to the Alogo Plaza, camps were held there. As a result, the museum was closed last October due to the expiration of the rental period and declining approval since the start of the CCIDID-19 epidemic, resulting in all its contents being donated to the World of Wonders Science Museum in Lodi.
While the museum may be non-existent, Imagine It is continuing to do its job of making science lessons fun and accessible. STEAM classes are being offered at venues such as the Three Oaks Community Center and Discovery Hub, Dungeon and Dragons club held Saturday at the Forgotten Path Games, and Imagine It has brought its lessons along the way by bringing slime to local birthday parties and independent teaching. studies in robotics, chemistry and dissection.
The camps have also returned with full force, most of which are held at the Three Oaks or Kairos’ Innovative Scholars Program center on Aloku Drive, which is the site of this week’s camps.
“Kairos has been kind enough to let them use their class when they were away,” he said. “Since they went in the summer, they told us we could do some camping here.”
Napier said many subjects are tied to children’s interests, such as “Minecraft,” Harry Potter, a science-focused camp for “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” and even a camp that allows children to solve crimes. detectives.
“We try and beat a bunch of different interests,” he said.
This week’s theme is “Boom! Bang! Splat! Entering Monday’s Independence Day holiday, the children set fireworks in jars, performed traditional Mentos and soda experiments and learned chromatography using black lights. Among the lessons, children used their free time to paint or design using clay, Legos and Snap Circuits.
Two major lessons were to develop a foam-like substance called ivory and to use acids and bases to change the color of water.
To make an ivory toothpaste, Napier poured different volumes of hydrogen peroxide into separate containers, squeezed into a bar of soap to make it stronger, sprinkled in food coloring to separate each beak and blended everything together. He then added the most important ingredient, a mixture of yeast and hot water, to act as a stimulant. Commissions rose from their vessels in foam forms, all in different forms.
“It looks like Popsicle in purple and blue cotton candy,” one girl could be heard saying.
Napier explained that the foam is the result of air heat that can be extremely hot on handling.
“If you see a very large (test) on YouTube, that can provide a lot of heat,” he said, “but ours is small.
In the second lab, the children were divided into groups of three and provided with jars and small bowls. Napier gave them water infused with red cabbage, which contains an important element of anthocyanin, a water-soluble pigment that gives red cabbages and other nutrients their color.
“Anthocyanins convert pigments with acids and bases,” he said. “What you’re going to do today guys is putting some of these color-changing things in your pot.”
The red cabbage juice, which was originally a dark blue color, was poured into cans. If baking soda – the base – was added, the color of the water would change to blue. If vinegar – acid – was added, it would turn pink.
“You guys once mixed vinegar with soda and got an answer,” Napier said. “But you too will get a color change.”
Napier is interested in a mix of students he met this week.
“It was good,” he said. “We have the old faces we used to have and the new faces.”
Gianna Emge had gone to Imagine It was in Alogo Plaza and decided to take part in the “Bang! Boom! Splat” camp for the sake of the name.
“The name‘ Bang! Bloom! Splat! ’Sounded like the smallest science-y camp, the most exciting I could join,” he said. “I thought it was really good, so I decided to join.”
Gianna described the experiment as “very interesting.”
For a whole week, campers will be building catapults to create splatter patterns.
