And we’re off and running for the second week of UK See Blue See STEM Summer Camps 2019! It was a bit of a muggy start, but the cool breeze and weather this afternoon was a welcomed event! We have another 160 students this week, including our partnership with Burgin Independent Schools and Consolidated Baptist Camp coming this week.
We have a goal to post a blog post each night this week with some highlights from the day and some conversation starters. [Admittedly, our family obligations can get in the way, so please bear with us!] The conversation starters are meant to help you get over the “What did you learn today?” “Nothin’” or <shrugging the shoulders> we often see with our school-age students. We’ll also post a link to the photos we are taking throughout the week. If at any time you want a photo removed that is of your child, please let us know and we’ll be happy to take it down.
Please make sure and check Twitter throughout the day this week – https://twitter.com/SeeBlueSTEMCamp – we’ll post more pictures and updates throughout the day the rest of the week. No account is needed! We are also on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/seebluestemcamp/) and Facebook.
Today the blue and red groups experienced how we use STEM in measuring human body performance with Dr. Haley Bergstrom and her team. They were amazed at all the facts and had a lot of fun collecting their own data and conducting their investigations. Many were surprised about their reaction times!
The purple and brown groups got to spend time in Dr. Robin Cooper’s labs and the medical outreach facility. They learned about their nervous system and about the electricity that runs through their muscles. Some may have brought home their own pictures of their nervous system. They got to look and touch organs today as well!
In robotics, all four groups started out with the We Do 2.0 robots. They got to build right away and start programming to see what they could get their robot to do. For many, it was their first time seeing a robot and programming, so they really enjoyed just exploring today and investigating how to make things work in different ways.
In the yellow and green groups, they explored a variety of engineering fields and did some slinky-math and arduinos with Dr. Bruce Walcott. In robotics, students built their robots and dived right into programming. We were so impressed by how far the teams got today, even starting on some of the challenges! Our robotics instructors have some fun new challenges up their sleeves this week, so we’re excited to see where the students take them!
In their words…
Each day we’ll post some excerpts from the students’ reflections of what they learned each day at the STEM Content session. We don’t correct for spelling or grammar in these 🙂
- Touching the organs was wired [weird]
- They were squishy!
- The diafram goes up and down with the lungs
- I liked my pulse
- I didn’t know there were different types of engineers.
Conversation Starters…
We know your child is getting to the age where it might be like pulling teeth to get them to talk about their day beyond “It was fine.” “It was fun.” “I didn’t do anything.” So, each day we’ll post some suggested conversation starters centered on camp activities or STEM-related themes.
Red/Blue Groups
- How do our lungs and diaphragm work together?
- How did your jump compare to an NFL athlete
- How did you build a model of the lungs and diaphragm? What did it show you?
- What did you build with your robot today? What code or program did you write to make it do something?
Purple/Brown Groups
- Did you touch any organs today? What did they look like? What did they feel like?
- What did you do with the cinnamon activity today?
- What does the electricity in your muscles do?
- What did you build with your robot today? What code or program did you write to make it do something?
Yellow/Green
- What was the purpose of pulsing the slinky? What did you find out?
- What are important words in circuits?
- How did robot building go today? What are you excited about getting your robot to do this week?
Photo of the Day…
Each day we’ll post a camp highlight. Click the picture and it will take you to the weekly photo album. Please note that we try to capture pictures of all the campers, but we cannot guarantee that we will get every single one. We try our very best to though! We leave them unedited, so if you love to edit photos…feel free! If there is a photo you wish to have removed, please email me and we’ll take it down!
