Week 6 was SWEET! The older kids had a delicious time learning about the history and science of sugar in Sugar Science. They started with the oldest source of sweet goodness, honey, and made some honey ball candies. They got to see, feel and taste nine different types of sugar, like raw sugar, coconut sugar, brown sugar, agave nectar, etc. They tasted their way to modern creations like corn syrup, and made a model of the molecular structure of a sugar molecule. They learned that at different temperatures sugar molecules begin to lose water, and this changes the appearance and texture of the sugar. The students experienced the soft ball, hard ball, soft crack and hard crack states of sugar. And, of course, they learned how to make candies like marshmallows, caramels and lollipops by carefully controlling the cooking temperature of the sugar.
They spent the other half of the morning programming using Scratch, a programming language developed at MIT. Making colorful games with the program was a popular activity and the children enjoyed sharing techniques and playing each others' games!
In the afternoon, the older students learned the engineering concept of hydraulics. They spent the week exploring how water under pressure can move devices, and then constructed mechanical arms controlled by pumps made of syringes and tubing. These arms were a big hit and the students enjoyed challenging each other to hydraulic arm wrestling!
Meanwhile, the younger students learned all about volcanoes. They spent the first two days building and painting a model of a volcano. On Day 3 they hit the lab and experimented with different ingredients for making the best "lava" to erupt in their volcano. Each team came up with a recipe, and the class voted on the favorite. On Day 4 they whipped up a big vat of lava and took our volcanoes outside to erupt them! They decorated the volcanoes with dinosaurs, who soon got buried in bubbling lava.
In the afternoon, the younger students took up their wands and enrolled at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! First the new students were sorted into Houses, with Gryffindor being the most popular. They learned wizard secrets about the Sorcerer's Stone, how to care for magical animals, and cook up a delicious witch's brew! They also decorated a cake with characters from the Harry Potter books and we celebrated Harry Potter's birthday on July 31st!
Week 7 was busy with construction and contraptions. The Jr. Architects learned about bridges and were challenged to build a bridge that could span two chairs and hold up at least one bottle of water. They built the highest tower possible using a limited supply of materials. They also explored an unorthodox building material, balloons! They built a fun house out of lots of twisty balloons.
In the afternoon, they explored the concept of buoyancy by molding boats out of clay, very tricky! They also made submarines, balloon-powered cars, and traditional paper air planes, and cylinder gliders. On the final day, they explored Newton's Third Law as they investigated the balance between fuel, weight and pressure when shooting water rockets.
Just what do doctors do? The older campers got to see for themselves in Med School. They learned about diseases of all sorts and their effect on the human body. They studied bones, learning about the importance of vitamin D and calcium in the diet (don't want to get rickets, do we?). They studied how muscles work and constructed models of hands with tendon-controlled joints. They dissected and examined a calf's heart, and learned about heart disease and how to read an EKG. The heart and lungs are closely tied, and the students made a model of the lung.
More pictures from the week:
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