Super Summer Science Camp introduced approximately 60 children to three important sciences that affect the world and how they relate to their daily lives.
“What we want to do is introduce students to different scientific disciplines that they wouldn’t normally be introduced to in school,” said Dow Global Environmental Social and Governance Expert Callie Ayers. “This (age group) is super impressionable, especially for girls, so we’re targeting this age because they’re just about to decide what they want to do with their lives and high school classroom.”
Environmental science, chemistry and computer science were explained to fifth through eighth grades by exposing them to experimentation, coding and crafts to better understand what these sciences entail, she said.
“I think they only see science in the classroom and it’s usually very structured based on what the school teaches as well, and this takes them out of that element and introduces them to things that they won’t see in a normal environment,” Ayers said.
The classroom environmental science lesson used a familiar and fun concept for the children.
“To learn climate change, students will do environmental Jenga and that will help them determine when we remove certain areas from the environment that can damage the entire ecosystem,” said instructor Reba Georgetown.
When different parts of an ecosystem were removed from the Jenga set, it showed how unstable the ecosystem becomes over time and then falls, Ayers said.
Georgetown also talked about how greenhouse gases play a role in the environment, leading the students to their next activity, which is tracking their carbon footprint, she said.
“We talked about carbon footprints and had them paint a foot and write what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint on the world,” she said. “The children are our future and if we don’t teach them how to take care of them, there may be no earth left.”
When 11-year-old Connor Lewno prepared for the experiment, he was eager to learn, he said.
“I hope there will be something really cool here, I bet there will be,” he said. “I like painting, I consider myself an artist. But I’m excited to be here. I am enthusiastic about environmental science, I have always loved nature.”
The chemistry room was the most exciting part for 10-year-old Connor Marley, who had hoped to see some kind of explosion, he said.
“I’m a little excited to learn how different things explode, like Coke and Mentos,” Marley said. “I want to learn a little bit about how things like that happen with nitrogen and stuff. I want to be a baseball coach or be a chemical scientist. I’m excited to learn and see things explode.”
Chemistry teacher Miranda Weed explained that even though nothing would explode, chemical reactions would occur.
“The kids are making bath bombs and they’re making water hoses,” she said. “For the bath bombs, they see a chemical reaction in real time, so when they add water to the baking soda and cream of tartar, they’re going to see a fizz, which is CO2 being released, so they see a reaction.”
With the water hoses, they learn about polymers and added sodium alginate to calcium chloride that combined to make a long hose, she said.
In the computer room, students could code robots so that they follow a path, instructor Katelyn Kelsey said.
“Dow has a few classrooms with circular robots that we use that revolve,” she said. “We use them to teach the kids about block coding and algorithms and to give them an introduction to computer science and robotics.”
Students programmed the robots to go through a rainbow maze learning about angles and how to give instructions to a robot, she said.
Sawyer Flournoy, 11, enjoyed coding the robots and the skills he learned from them, he said.
“There are five colors and we have to pick a color pattern and from our starting point we have to code it to hit our pattern,” he said. “This taught me that I can change it, and create patterns, and it also taught me angles. I found that I had to turn 270 degrees to go to the left and then came down at 180, this taught me that this was much smarter than I had thought.”
The skills he learned has made him consider robotics in high school, he said.
“Computer science is a skill because kids today are getting cell phones younger and younger and we now need more kids in STEM areas and if we get kids to start learning these concepts younger, they are more likely to pursue the career,” said Kelsey.
Raven Wuebker is a reporter for The Facts. Contact her at 979-237-0152.
