Another beautiful day in the Bluegrass as students explored more STEM topics with our awesome professors and graduate students!
Red/Blue Groups
Today the students were in a biology lab in our beautiful new Don and Cathy Jacobs Science Building with Brittany Rice, a graduate student in the Biomedical Sciences doctorate program in the College of Medicine. They were able to use state of the art lab equipment, wear lab coats, goggles, gloves, etc. as a real laboratory scientist would (this included some lab safety lessons as well 🙂 ). They made models of DNA and then did a simple DNA extraction themselves to look at their own DNA. They were very fascinated! Then they learned about bacteria and germs and how they grow and where they’re located. They did a bacteria activity with their hands and then did some sampling to see what bacteria would grow (if any). They’ll get to view their results on Friday.
In robotics, the students started on the green city challenge. The green city challenge requires them to put multiple steps together and complete different tasks such as moving the dam or turning the wind turbine.
Green/Yellow Groups
Dr. Robin Cooper is a Biology professor at UK and has been a long time supporter at STEM Camp. The student always have so much fun in his lab as they experiment with drosophila (aka, fruit flies)! Today they did some sorting of the fruit flies under the microscopes in the lab. They had fruit fly “races” as well. They also did some physiological investigations on how the body reacts to certain flavors and spices. The students also got to spend time in the medical outreach facility where they get to look at and hold real organs, talk about their purpose and function, and look at EKG’s of themselves and their friends.
In robotics, the students started on the space challenge. The space challenge requires them to put multiple steps together and complete different tasks such as moving the moon rocks or opening the satellite.
In their words…
Blue/Red Groups
We got to extract DNA (for real) from our body
I did not know that you could get DNA fro your cheeks
it is weird and gross
working with biohazardous items
I loved learning about Dna & I love doing expirements.
I loved the expirements.
I learned lots about DNA. I learned that you can extract DNA with gatorade.
How DNA has to have a specific base pairs
Would you like to learn more about this topic? – Yes I would so I could help the earth.
Yellow/Green Groups
I learned about how the DNA of a fruit fly is very similar to that of a human and a bunch more about the human body and how it reacts (book).
I loved everything. -Learning about the body using the fruit flies -reading about the human body -actually touching the organs
I am fascinated with genes and biology.
Larva fruit flies roll away as a defense tactic.
Humans share 20% of DNA with fruit flys
if a cockroaches heads off it still can sense a persons from coming
I would probably faint at hte sight of Blood or Bugs
It was hands on gross stuff
That ockroaches can survive without their heads
It was hands on
That Larva are extremely agile
Conversation Starters…
Red/Blue Groups
How did you extract your own DNA today? What did you observe about your DNA?
What did you learn from the handwashing activity?
What did you swab for bacteria today? What do you think you will see on Friday when you look at it again?
What challenge did you start with today for the Green City Challenge? What was your favorite part about programming today?
Yellow/Green Groups
Why did you study about fruit flies today? What was your favorite part of working with the fruit flies?
What organ was the most interesting to look at and hold today? Was there an organ that surprised you in what it looked like?
What challenge did you start with today for the Space Challenge? What was your favorite part about programming today?
Thursday was another eventful day at See Blue STEM Camp. The students are really engaging well with the content and material and the loudness of the chatter is increasing exponentially, which we view as a good thing. They usually come in pretty quiet and reserved at the beginning of the week, and as they get more comfortable with their groups, the structure of the camp, etc., they really start to come out of their shells. STEM Camp has a knack for bringing out the smiles and voices of even the ones who don’t usually talk!
The Blue and Red groups got to explore the wide and wonderful world of engineering today with Dr. Bruce Walcott, a professor in electrical engineering and one of the co-founders of STEM Camp. The students dove deeper today into the design engineering process they learned about on Monday and got to apply it further through small investigations. From a lesson on buoyancy to building small generators to looking at how sound waves move, many were inspired to consider a career in engineering. They got to tour the engineering complex and several of the laboratories where the UK students and faculty really get to build and test their ideas. They got to talk to the UK students and faculty; our students asked them some great questions! The favorite on the tour again today was the anechoic chamber!
The Yellow/Green Groups explored and learned about materials science today with Dr. Brett Criswell, a science education faculty member in our Department of STEM Education. He kept them very busy the entire time, conducting mini experiments, testing their hypotheses, discovering electrical properties of different mediums via squishy circuits, and even got to make their own gak! If the cornstarch in your pantry goes missing, you might check your child’s room… 🙂
In robotics today, each group started their challenge…red and blue groups started the Green City challenge which focuses on ideas around sustainability and energy. The yellow and green groups started the Space Challenge today which focuses on ideas around physical science and astronomy. Since it was new, there were some frustrations, but as they got the hang of the concept of the new challenges, there was some great excitement in the air. All are looking forward to the final day tomorrow where they will really get to put all of their skills together for some more complex programming.
It’s hard to believe tomorrow’s the last day! We sure have enjoyed having them this week. They are truly a great group this year!
In their words…
Red/Blue Groups
What did you learn about today that you did not know before?
that it is possible to create a room without echos
that slinkies have different sound waves
I learned how a boat floats
that concrete could float
dencity and how it works [sic]
how engineers solve their problem
What did you like about what you learned today?
learning about echolocation
making aluminum foil float
I love engineering!
calculus
how we got to build a genorator [sic]
Yellow/Green Groups
What did you learn about today that you did not know before?
glue+water+Borax = Slime!
I learned about how to make electricity out of playdough, the different sands and how to make goo
That kinetic sand can’t absorb water in any way
that scientists have to catigor things based on structur and characteristics [sic]
what material science is, how to make silly putty, different kinds of sand
that you could make a solid out of water and glue
You can make putty using borax, water, and glue. Also, magic sand is hydrophobic (water resistant)
What did you like about what you learned today?
Getting to make my own gak. An learning about the field of material science
I liked that I got to keep this gooey stuff and you could bounce it
you can turn corn startch into science
I liked making all the slime
the scientists can use the materials to make better modified items to change and solve problems
materials science is awesome. I’d like to learn how to make more mixtures
Conversation starters…
Blue/Red Groups:
What was your favorite part about the engineering tour today?
What is an anechoic chamber?
How many pennies did your boat hold? If you could build it again, what would you do differently? (The red group didn’t have time to get to this today)
Is there a particular field of engineering that you think might interest you?
What challenges did you work today in programming your robot for the Green City?
Yellow/Green Groups:
What is materials science? What makes it special?
You did an experiment with several different types of sand today…what were you trying to figure out? Did your results match your hypothesis?
I heard you watched a really cool video about corn starch…can you tell me about it?
What is so special about the Gak you made…and wait, you made gak!!??
What challenges did you work today in programming your robot for the Space Challenge?
It’s hard to believe that we’re already at the end of the week! Today was an even busier day since it was the end of the week and the students were extra alive today from all the activity this week. The blue and red and groups got to experience Dr. Brett Criswell’s wonderful awe-inspiring world of nanotechnology. From experimenting with peach fuzz and different types of plants, to talking about polymer-chains found in over-the-counter indigestion medicines, the students were taken to the teeny tiny world of nano-land. They had a great time conducting different experiments and even remembered such things as Congo Red! In robotics, they wrapped up an awesome week with finishing many challenges in the green city challenges. There were lots of screams of excitement, joy, and high fives going around as the students became more communicative within their groups and more confident in their programming skills. We tried to capture some video of it today. Clicking on the video will take you to our YouTube Channel where you can view more videos from today.
The yellow and green groups got to experience the wonderful world of engineering with our resident engineering expert, Dr. Bruce Walcott. The students got to tour the engineering complex at UK and got to go into many of the different laboratories that UK College of Engineering has. There were faculty and graduate students onsite in the laboratories so they were able to show the students some of their latest research discoveries and experiments and let the students tinker with some of the lab materials as well. Seeing real research happening is always inspiring to the students and they really ask great questions that sometimes even stump the researchers! Of course the favorite again was the sound proof room. I’m not sure what it is about that room, but they always enjoy it! They also built mini motors and talked about simple machines with Dr. Walcott. They really enjoyed the various engineering design activities and applying their content skills. They ended their engineering time with some teamwork activities, including the favorite Hula Hoop Challenge. Students often forget that in the real world, most of our work is done in teams and communication is vitally important. So the students had a great time learning to communicate and talk to each other more.
Lego robotics for the yellow and green groups was much more successful today. We even had a couple of groups do all the challenges on the Space Challenge! The Space Challenge and EV3 programming is definitely a lot different from the NXT programming, so some were frustrated a couple of days ago, but were much more confident today. It was such a joy to watch them grow over the past week in this area. They really enjoyed the Space Challenge…it is definitely more complex than the Green City they were used to before!
We all had such a great and enjoyable week with the students. It would not at all have been possible without the tremendous staff that we had this year! I had a bit of a panic moment when (because of snow days) we decided to combine both camps into one week; but some quick creative thinking brought on an awesome opportunity for our preservice teachers in our middle and secondary programs and our doctoral students at UK. Some of the college students took a Robotics class with me prior to camp starting and assisted Mark Evans and Robbie Randall in the robotics rooms and some of the college students just wanted to help out with the camp. I would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to and thank our staff this year.
We have a great group of graduate students in the STEM Education department at UK and these 5 are no exception!
L-R Back – Kayla Blyman, Floyd Broughton, Thomas Roberts; L-R Front – Maranda Miller, Marla Lemmon
Our inservice teachers are priceless! Robbie and Mark take the lead on the robotics, Brooke (Green Group), Tavin (Yellow Group), Megan (Blue Group), and Candice (Red Group) were our team leaders this year, of course Craig is the inventor, creator, and director of the See Blue STEM Camp. The camp is a way for our inservice teachers to stay connected to the university, provide high quality mentoring to the preservice teachers involved, and even have the opportunity to engage and learn new content and materials alongside the students.
L-R Back – Robbie Randall (Beaumont MS), Mark Evans (Jessie Clark MS), Candice Cprek (Henry Clay HS); L-R Front – Brooke Powers (Beaumont MS), Tavin Feheley (Jessie Clark MS), Craig Schroeder (Beaumont MS). Not pictured – Megan Vogel (Tates Creek MS)
Since we were going to 1 week with 144 students, we knew we had needed to have more help. It was an obvious choice to offer the opportunity to the preservice (future teachers) middle and secondary mathematics and science students in our College. Through this unique experience, they got to work with the students in a smaller, low-stakes setting that allowed them to really practice their classroom management skills, their questioning techniques, and work on developing appropriate relationships with students. They were mentored through this process by the high quality inservice teachers as well as the college faculty we had involved. Although they were exhausted by the end of the week, they all stated this was the best learning experience they have had thus far and really enjoyed the opportunity to grow as future educators and felt they gained a lot of STEM content knowledge alongside the students as well.
L-R Back – Andre Henderson, Brian True, Alex Freeman, William Schooler, Michael Delfino, Eric Garwood, Zeke Edwards; L-R Middle – Ben Wolfe, Maria Richards, Brittney Denton, Lydia Speler, Amy Allen, Tyler Waters, Chris Rogers, Clay Rehmel, Shelby Cameron; L-R Front Row Katherine Poe, Alanna Briggs, Jamie Kosel, Michael Plas
Craig, myself, Christa Jackson, Mark Evans, Gabe Brown, and Bruce Walcott are the team that make up the directors of the camp. We do everything from logistics to food to parent communication to anything else that needs to be done to help things run smoothly.
L-R Craig Schroeder, Christa Jackson, and Margaret Schroeder; Not pictured- Mark Evans, Bruce Walcott, and Gabe Brown (they were making sure everything was running smoothly while we were snapping pictures!)
Conversation starters…
Red and Blue Groups
What is nanotechnology?
What kinds of things repel water? Why do they need to repel water?
How do you make magic sand?
Peaches reflect water? I’ve never heard about that. Tell me more!
What challenge(s) did you complete in the Green City Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?
What was your favorite part about STEM Camp?
Out of all the things you learned this week, what was the most interesting?
What career do you want to pursue when you get older? What kinds of classes are you going to need to take in order to be successful in your career?
Yellow and Green Groups
What is a sound proof room? What makes it sound proof?
What was your favorite lab you visited? What made it your favorite?
What challenge(s) did you complete in the Space Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?
What was your favorite part about STEM Camp?
Out of all the things you learned this week, what was the most interesting?
What career do you want to pursue when you get older? What kinds of classes are you going to need to take in order to be successful in your career?
Video of the Day… This video really exemplifies why we do this and why we feel it’s important for students to have these opportunities.
We thank you for a wonderful week with your students and hope you have an enjoyable rest of the summer!
Next year’s camp dates are tentatively set for June 8 – 12, 2015 at the University of Kentucky Colleges of Education and Engineering for rising 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.Â
With all 143 students back on campus today we were all pretty busy…having lots of fun! Today was full of engineering fun for both groups. Red and blue groups had a blast with the Dr. Walcott and other College of Engineering staff. They got to tour the different facilities and laboraties the College of Engineering has. One of their favorites was going into the sound proof room…now if only we could get them to stay quiet for 30 seconds to really experience it 🙂 They also got to design an aluminum boat and test it’s floating capacity. In robotics, they got started on the Green City Challenge today and had a lot of great successes. There were lots of smiles and high-fives as the students completed the various tasks associated with the challenges. Tomorrow they are in for another treat with Dr. Brett Criswell and some nanotechnology action! Since the astronomy viewing was not available all week because of night time cloud cover, Dr. Tim Knauer – Director of the MacAdams Observatory – came over after his class today and set up his special telescope that allowed the students to view the sun directly. They were very excited to see the fiery ball and even a ring was visible! We only wish the other two groups could’ve seen it too, but he is teaching a class until 12:30 each day.
The yellow and green groups took to some design engineering activities with Mr. Doug Klein from Project Lead the Way. Mr. Klein had them building away during their session. The students were very excited to be “real engineers” for the day and got to design and build dams and levees. In robotics they started the newly-released Space Challenge. Since this is a new, it brought about it’s own set of challenges, but the kids did a great job of working through it all together, being patient, and working on programming. One group got up to 53 blocks for one program! Wow! Tomorrow they will get to end with a STEM Camp favorite – Dr. Bruce Walcott.
In their words…
The wonderful world of engineering! (Dr. Bruce Walcott) – red and blue Groups
​I learned that when being an engineer you have to consider the volume of what your creating like what we did with the pennies.
That concrete boats float
Yes because I enjoy both math and science which are what you use in engineering.
The more the volume of a boat, the better it can float with weight.
I thought the activities made it fun.
Design Engineering – Mr. Doug Klein – yellow and green groups
​Building the egg mobile
That we got to actually enginer stuff.​
I learned how to build a dam.
I am interested in a career in engineering because I like to create things and solve problems.
Yes; engineering is all around us and is a big part in life.
Levees (effective ones, at least) can be made with tape, cardboard, dirt, and popsicle sticks.
It was interactive, fun, and included one of my possible careers.
Yes because I love Stem and it is my passion.
ConversationStarters…
Blue and Red Groups
What is a sound proof room? What makes it sound proof?
How many pennies were you able to put into your boat? What makes your boat float?
How did you find the area or dimensions of what your boat needed to be?
What was your favorite part of engineering today?
What challenge did you complete in the Green City Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?
Yellow and Green Groups
What does it mean to be an engineer?
What do you need to build a successful levee or dam?
Talk to me about how you created your levee or dam today. What did you take into consideration as you built it?
What is an egg mobile?
Picture of the Day…Be sure to scroll through the pictures as I noticed that I didn’t hit accept to publish the pictures from yesterday. I’m missing half of the pictures from today so I will get them uploaded in the morning…my apologies…we’re trying hard to keep up with these great kids!
It was yet another busy, fun-filled, informative day at the See Blue STEM Camp! The Yellow and Green Groups loaded up the buses and headed out to the Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER)Â today while the red and blue groups remained on campus for a day of robotics and mathematical modeling with Dr. Cindy Jong. The yellow and green groups really enjoyed their time at CAER and learned A LOT. They came home with some paving stones that they made themselves and learned about the chemical reactions between concrete and cement…be sure to ask them about it! If the stones start to crack put a little water on them as that should help it as it cures. Since they were out at CAER today there was no robotics for them.
The red and blue groups had a great time doing some mathematical modeling with Dr. Cindy Jong. I always love having the students experience “pure mathematics” because most come in sullen that they “have to do” mathematics and then they realize that math can be engaging and fun! They first talked about 3D structures and had the opportunity to build with some sticks and balls manipulatives trying to figure out the varying strengths of different configurations. Then they learned what origami had to do with math. They made origami cubes and some even got to the crane today. They were all very excited by the end!
In robotics they worked on programming. They learned how to do a 180 degree turn, complete the parking lot challenge and the square challenge. They learned that not all robots are created equal and had fun figuring out which variables (math!) had to be changed in order to get their robot to do what they wanted it to do. That completes the basics for them so tomorrow they will start on the Green City Challenge.
Tomorrow we’ll all be back together on campus…we have deemed tomorrow Engineering Day! The students will spend most of their time in the engineering complex tomorrow…it’s usually one of the favorites!
In their words…
Mathematical Modeling (red and blue groups):
​I learned about polyhedrons.
I liked doing the origami crane.
I really liked that my bridge didn’t break.
I liked how we got to build 3D shapes.
Yes, because I would like to build bridges when I grow up.
CAER (yellow and green groups):
​​Seaweed can be made into fuel and is edible.
A lot of the information we learned today could benefit us in the real world.  Some of the information we learned could inspire us to be scientist
I find this very applicable to real life situations.
Yes, because I like science and I wish to work here one day.
About how many biofuels like algae can consume carbon-dioxide and create any fuel.
I liked learning these things today because It will help my future.
Conversation Starters…
Yellow and Green Groups:
What did you learn on your energy walk today?
Where does Kentucky rank in comparison to the other states in energy usage? Why is our ranking so high when we have such a low population?
What in the world is Flocculation?
I always thought that cement dried…what happens to it if it doesn’t dry? What is it actually doing?
What was your favorite part of going to the Center for Applied Energy Research?
Red and Blue Groups:
What does origami have to do with math?
What kind of shapes did you use in building your bridge?
How did you get your cube together without using tape or glue?
Why is mathematical modeling important?
Picture of the Day…Â Don’t forget that clicking the picture will take you to all the pictures we took today!
Red/Blue Groups
In robotics, the students started on the green city challenge. The green city challenge requires them to put multiple steps together and complete different tasks such as moving the dam or turning the wind turbine.
supporter at STEM Camp. The student always have so much fun in his lab as they experiment with drosophila (aka, fruit flies)! Today they did some sorting of the fruit flies under the microscopes in the lab. They had fruit fly “races” as well. They also did some physiological investigations on how the body reacts to certain flavors and spices. The students also got to spend time in the medical outreach facility where they get to look at and hold real organs, talk about their purpose and function, and look at EKG’s of themselves and their friends.
In robotics, the students started on the space challenge. The space challenge requires them to put multiple steps together and complete different tasks such as moving the moon rocks or opening the satellite.
