LOOKING AHEAD

Session Three:

Session Three: July 23 – August 3, 2018

 

Theme: Learnasaurus: Prehistoric Times

Field Trip: Heckscher Art Museum: Friday, July 27th

Click here for Permission Slip.

Click here for Emergency Contact Form. All permission slips and emergency contact forms need to be filled out and submitted prior to the trip.

 

Parent Visitation Day: Friday, August 3rd, 10am

Citizen Science Activity: Fossil Finder Project

• Students will navigate through an online database of photos of the Turkana Basin in Kenya for fossils to help direct Paleontologists to specific locations to study.

 

News from the Digital Den with Miss Stacey

 

This week in the Digital Den, campers are perfecting their coding skills in Tynker. Students chose informational “idea sheets” about biomes and the animals that inhabit each. They then learned how to code a stage to match their chosen biome in Tynker. After the stage was set campers learned how to choose an actor that looked like an animal that lives in their chosen biome. Our younger campers learned how to find a character with a pre-set code so that they could add another actor and code it to follow the same script. Our more experienced campers added actors and learned how to code an animation through trial and error. Be sure to visit our blog to see some of the beginner projects our campers have completed, or to follow along with the digital fun! On Thursday, our campers visited Sweetbriar nature center where they gathered more ideas for their coding adventures!

 

News from Robotics 1 with Juliana

 

I cannot believe we are already half way through the summer! This week was full of Habitat Habit fun! Our science campers stayed busy learning all about different Earth habitats with the arctic and rainforest being our most popular. We watched some very cool videos of some high tech robots in each habitat and how they are used in various ways. We learned about the animals, landscapes, weather and how these habitats contribute to the rest of the world! Then our scientists created their very own habitats and dressed up DASH accordingly. To end the week, they programmed DASH and recorded their own voices to talk about all of the different fun facts they learned throughout the week. We thank our parents who came to visit and hope you all enjoyed seeing your programmers amazing progress!

 

News from Robotics 2 with Alan

 

Our science campers worked on “The Habitat Habit” project, “an ocean cleaner”. The campers put together a robot with an ultrasonic sensor and servo, which can detect objects and then transport the object to a certain area. By working on the “ocean-cleaner” project in a group, the campers learned how robots can autonomously react to its surroundings using sensors. In addition, the campers learned how robots can help human beings to improve our environment and to make our world a better place.

 

News from Engineering with Kyle

 

This week in engineering class, campers learned about three main designs for Bridges: Beam, Truss and Suspension. The students first blueprinted their designs and we built two symmetrical sides from popsicle sticks and connected them to form a free standing bridge. Campers were encouraged to use triangle shapes either in their framework or stringing since triangles are sturdier structures. It was very exciting to observe our future engineers learn how to create structures using engineering principles.

 

News from Science with Tina

 

Hello and welcome back to Block 2 of ESSK. Continuing on our theme, Habitat Habit, this week we made our very own Biomes in a bag. We will observe them over the summer and see if there is a difference in how they grow as opposed to plants grown in a more natural setting. As we walk through the beautiful Park Shore grounds we are enjoying looking to see if we can attract more butterflies to our area and looking for the butterflies native to our area. The campers have enjoyed putting together the data to be recorded in our Nature’s Notebook online account. As the week moved along we made soil less planters and will watch our zucchini grow. We hope to be able to make some zucchini bread by August! We all enjoyed our trip to Sweet Briar Farm, where again, we discussed habitats, environment and Biomes. I was happy to meet so many new parents at the visitation this week. It is always nice to see the children share their love of Science with their family. Now that we are at the halfway point of the summer, I am sad to see some of my friends leave but I’m confident they enjoyed their time at Extreme STEAM and will carry away many interesting and important facts about their environment. As Week 5 begins I look forward to our new science campers beginning their journey at Extreme STEAM and all the fun experiments they will experience.

 

News from Artistic Design with Lisa

 

Our little artists had a great time exploring The Cave and trained their eyes to take a closer look at the animals that live down there. They sketched their favorite creatures and then painted them using watercolors. Their next project was creating 3D dioramas of an animal of their choice and their natural habitats. Everyone enjoyed the challenge of constructing different environments and pop up creatures. Lastly, as a special project the campers made chalkboard slime that they were able to draw on. We learned about pointillism and distortion. Overall, all the campers had a great time learning and mixing science with art!