It was a great month! Each of my science summer camps met two hours a week for four weeks in July.
Scratch Programming Adventure: We had children who were 'brand new' to Scratch as well as those who had programmed in the language before. Together we learned and practiced how to move sprites, sense input, add special effects, control events, make sounds, animate, create dialogue, and use operators. Students shared projects and learned how to 'remix' shared programs.
Science Fair Bootcamp: Students in grades 5-8 participated in this camp. We investigated the components of STEM Fair projects. Students brainstormed how to create a STEM project based on a paper 'whirlybird' toy. Many of the students shared their projects from the previous school year; we also explored the many STEM fair opportunities available in the coming school year.
Kitchen Science: What fun we had during this camp! It was very hands-on even though we were virtual! In the final days, we made Oobleck, 'magically' poked pencils in a water-filled plastic bag that stayed sealed, watched dancing fruit in soda, and on our last day, we made and ate ice cream/juice slushies in a bag. Yum!
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle ... Innovate: We explored the importance of recycling and how recycling happens to start the camp. We did some 'spur of the moment' builds with recycled, reused materials -- we built towers and robots. Our 'major' project was to design and build a game from recycled, reused, repurposed materials (while keeping in mind good game design elements such as having a winner, being fun and interesting, and having a theme). Some students worked with a partner (virtually) to create their games; other students worked individually. Games were presented in Shark Tank format as students gave their "pitches" to convince us to "buy" their games.
We had a lot of fun! Take a look below for some photos of our activities.
Moravian Academy offered more than 30 virtual summer programs at no cost to Academy families this summer. Themes included the arts, sciences, and language learning, among others.