Category: Uncategorized

Although the students had to brave the downpour rain at the end of the day (again), there was a buzz and excitement in the air from the fun they had!

Red/Blue Groups:

The red and blue groups 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…there was some extra handwashing that went on the rest of the day after they realized the germs on their hands 🙂 In robotics, they started the Green City Challenges. There were some initial frustrations as it’s a little bit different putting the programming together than with the football field and mazes. But they persevered and did awesome!

Yellow/Green Groups

It was their turn to be with Dr. Jennifer Eli, an alumnus of our program and current Associate Professor at University of Arizona, today! She loves to talk to the students about mathematical modeling and what tools we can use to model mathematics and other things. Today they specifically talked about polyhedra and made one of their own using a 3D Pen. Then they get to get creative and build and create their own items…once again, they brought their “A” game for creativity! We loved seeing their personalities come out in their creations and then watching them wear them around proudly the rest of the day. In robotics they started the Space Challenge. Some were bummed they didn’t get to finish the football challenge, but they enjoyed starting to put their programming knowledge together to work on the space challenges.

In their words…

Red/Blue Groups

• • “I liked everything. (except having to leave)”
  • “Of course!  I just think DNA is super awesome, and I would love to have another lesson.”
  • “People can clone other using DNA”
  • “DNA is abreviation for Dyrynucleic acid (or soemthign like that).”
  • “That we made a tripple axel out of candy which is our DNA lines”
  • “I would like to learn more about this topic because it is a big part of our world.”
  • “I liked being able to see what my DNA looked like in a visual form.”
  • ”That there are 25,000 human genes.”

Yellow/Green Groups

• “I would like to learn more because of the difficulty and the fun of learning it.”
• “I learned that focus and hard work pay off.”
• “I liked that it was fun and we had freedom to be creative!”
• “I learned how to make polyhedrons with a 3-D pen.”
• “3D pens are not as easy as they look and that they have multiple buttons.”
• “I liked creating the 3D structures”

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 challenges did you start  in the Green City Challenge? What was your favorite part about programming today? What was the hardest part about programming today?

Yellow/Green Groups

• What can you use 3d pens for?
• Why is it important to build models of things?
• How did you build your polyhedra?
• What challenges did you start  in the Space Challenge? What was your favorite part about programming today? What was the hardest part about programming today?

Photo of the Day…

Click here to view the photos for today!

Photo Credit to UK College of Education PR Team

The Yellow/Green groups had a busy day off site at the Center for Applied Energy Research! The students really enjoyed the different activities. They learned about Newton’s Laws through Newton’s Cradle, explored energy through balloons, rubber bands, and masking tape; and built some electromagnets. The energy walk was a bit warm, so they cut that a little short, but the students were great about drinking a lot of water! It was a great fun-filled day!

The Red/Blue groups faced their dissection fears and had a great day learning about animals, necropsy and organs. Dr. Bryant is a very passionate and engaging presenter and showed the students why her job was important. She studies why animals die in order to help prevent it from happening in the future. Our students at camp have very large hearts and were very concerned for the animals that had died; but rest assured, no animals were harmed and the students discussed ethical issues of animal research. They got to see some really cool things – such as round worms, a cancerous cow organ, a horse heart, etc. After that, the students got to do their own exploring and learning about organs by dissecting a pig. Most of them handled the dissection really well; they were excited to use the special tools and explore the different parts! Some needed a little more encouragement or sat with me while I dissected for them and then we explored together. 🙂 While learning about the different organs and their functions, they played bingo as well!

In their words…

Yellow/Green Groups –

What did you learn about today that you did not know before?

• that if i ran a company biomass would bring in the most money
• i learned that there are tons of different ways to save electricity
• i learned about different types of energy and how much energy different household items use
• i learned that the more electrons some thing has, the stronger the magnetic field is
• That even though some energy is good for your wallet, does not mean its good for the environment.

What did you like about what you learned today?

• we got to generate electricity
• i liked learning how to make wire spin forever
• i learned cheap ways of getting feul
• there was hands on and what we were learning about was interesting
• i enjoyed learning about how many kilowates go into certain devices
• I liked the way people explained things. It kept me interested and it also made sense
• That people are trying hard to find a cheap and efficient way to make energy good for the environment

• more ways that they are helping us be green
• yes, i could learn different ways to make and save energy
• yes, because chemistry plays a large role in finding ways to preserve energy

Red/Blue Groups

What did you learn about today that you did not know before?

What did you like about what you learned today?

It is really hard to believe that today was our last day with these awesome campers! It truly has been a great second week. The students were very well behaved and were genuinely excited about the work they did this week. Today the students got to work with Dr. Tim Knaeur, the director of the MacAdams Observatory at UK. Dr. Knaeur gave a presentation to the students about outerspace in general and then focused on the Milky Way, where Earth’s presence is known. They got to explore more in-depth, Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. They even constructed a 3-dimensional representation of Io! (You probably figured that out already though as your student came home with it tonight)

Today was the final competition day in Robotics. The students made last minute changes to their robots and then it was off to the competition ring. There were mini-competitions and then each group ended with a large competition where all 16 robots competed against each other in the ring. The last robot standing won! It definitely kept the counselors on their toes trying to catch the falling over robots and those that got knocked out of the “ring”. The students really enjoyed it though and it was a nice way to end the week.

In their words…