Science Camp Physics

The great team of teachers celebrated the last day of Science Camp with a Physics show with Dr. Shropshire and his ISU students.  The kids had a blast!  Stomp rockets helped.  It's been another great year for CSI Science Camp.  

Science Camp Teachers are AWESOME!

The teachers that volunteer each year bring individual talents and strengths to the group.  I have some who are able to come back every year, and their experience improves camp each time.  They receive a full day of content training, in this case it was focused on using Arts in deliberate ways to teach STEM subjects.  They spend 4 long days with the camp kids and stay positive and flexible.  Then I ask them to come back and teach more than a hundred more kids at a community park activity.  They are awesome!  They do receive PD credit and other benefits, but I know their time and energy are taken so that many local kids can have a great experience!! 

CSI Science Camp Partnerships

This post will highlight the great partners that come out of the woodwork to help these kids have a positive experience.   We actually ran out of time this year to use all the volunteers in Burley, but we hope to get them involved in the Twin Falls camp later this summer. 

We had visits from the Burley Fire Department, ISU and Dr. Shropshire, Lynn Manning with his candy cannon, and Dale Dayley who taught us about fiber optics.  During the teacher training, we had Rob Mayer teach us about phonograph construction, John McClusky teach us about medical illustration, and Bettina Throckmorton helped us find our artistic side. 

I am so grateful we have talented and willing people in Mini-Cassia!

Burley Fire Department came for our favorite activity...Save Mr. Egg!

Dale Dayley presents to teachers and students about Fiber Optics

John McClusky presents on his work as a medical illustrator

Rob Mayer teachers about how to build a working phonograph with school supplies~!

CSI Science Camp 2015 - Full STEAM Ahead

Every year I think Science Camp can't get any better, and then it does!  According to one young student when he was asked, "What is your favorite part of Science Camp?", he said, :Ever-thing!"  Another fun comment came from my 6 year old nephew.  After 2 days at Junior Science Camp, he told his mom he wanted to be a chemical engineer.  You are WELCOME!

Our theme this year allowed us to spend more time on the creative process that is so critical in the STEM subjects.  On day 1, I saw the teachers taking that element and just making some amazing things happen.  In all the years that I have been doing film canister poppers, I never thought to add a little washable paint and launch them on paper.  The exploding art was awesome!

The kids have their favorites, like solar ovens and lava lamps.  So I am glad we choose to do some activities more than one year.  But the new activities were so fun to watch!  We used the brick lab and magnetos to build structures, then we put those designs and structures on solar paper to see the impressions left after some time.  Their 3D designs became 2D pieces of art.

I will post a few days in a row just to capture some of the best shots.  Thanks to CSI Community Education, Cassia and Minidoka School district teachers, the Burley Fire Department, Dale Dayley, and Dr. Steve Shropshire of ISU.  The laser show at the end was the perfect way to end a great week!!

Micron STEM Innovations Conference

I spent a great day in Boise attending the Micron UI STEM Innovations Conference.  It is generously supported by both partners, so the conference is free to attendees.  This year the theme focused on partnerships so I presented about the Science Camp model that we use at CSI.  Local teachers run the camp while earning Professional Development credit and content confidence during training days.  Other presentations included everything from job outlooks for STEM majors, great ideas for elementary teachers, and learning to use CODE.org and Scratch for computer programming.  I had a great time!  

Sneak Peak at the Science Camp Theme 2015

This is a great reminder that my grandmother was right.  Moderation in all things!  STEM must be balanced with creative pursuits, so full STEAM ahead!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/09/05/stem-is-incredibly-valuable-but-if-we-want-the-best-innovators-we-must-teach-the-arts/

Camp Team Pictures

This is the last post for the Burley Science Camp.  I have to say that everything turned out really well, and we had the most ever campers participate.  I had a great team of teachers from Minidoka and Cassia school districts, and they ranged in grade levels from 1st-7th.  I am so glad they choose to be camp teachers each year.

Here are the rest of the campers.  Next year we will probably split them up into smaller groups.  We had so many register the first day that our classes were big!  That's a good problem to have, but it made some of the projects and experiments harder to get through in the time that we had.  Always something to improve each year!  See you at the Science Camps in July!

Wrapping up the GAMES in Burley

We had a great day outside at Science Camp.  The Junior Campers learned about solar energy, and the power of light.  They made solar ovens and used special paper to do art projects with help from the sun.   I am so grateful for Rosie Davids and UI 4H Club members for hosting these 15 lucky kids!

Most of the kids went on a Math Hike.  OK....that sounds pretty sad but each station gave the campers an opportunity to learn something about numbers, patterns, or measurements you can find in the natural world.  My favorite was probably fibonacci hopscotch, but I also loved watching the kids tell stories about their "tree cookies" by counting the rings and learning about life cycles.   They used binoculars and magnifying glasses to look for the smallest of creatures, and I am glad the weather cooperated.

The oldest campers had their turn building the robots out of electric toothbrushes.  Of course these kids totally planned to use these in their mouths so that they didn't have to manually brush.  I told them it wouldn't be the best idea.

A great rainy day for the egg drop!

Well, when we pass out the evaluations tomorrow, I think I know what everyone will write in as their favorite activity.  The kids design capsules or contraptions that can keep a raw egg safe during a drop from, say, a fire truck bucket ladder.   This morning I looked at the forecast and it said the weather would clear by the afternoon.  At 2 PM it was still drizzling, but the firemen came anyway and it was AWESOME!  And the weather did clear, so there!  In other news, we started the Junior Science Camp with 4H Rosie and they had all kinds of fun learning about dinosaurs and volcanoes.   We have one more day and then you will have to wait for the Gooding and Twin Falls Science Camps in July.