Science Camp took up residence in the Riverbank Teen Center recently, and wrapped up after a week long stint on Friday. Camp had been offered daily from Monday, July 14 through Friday, July 18 from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the Teen Center and attendees received a special camp T-shirt.
The week long camp included several activities including experiments, scientific challenges, water safety, swim instruction, movies, and team building activities.
The 31 campers were asked to bring a sack lunch, snacks, swim suit, towel, enclosed shoes and sunscreen, to make sure they were prepared for anything.
“It’s a great feeling to know that the kids enjoyed it as much as I did,” said Jackie Hernandez, Recreation Leader. “The kids seemed to enjoy the ice cream a lot on Friday.”
The campers began each day with a team building exercise. On Monday they did a hula hoop challenge, on Tuesday they built a structure with marshmallows and toothpicks without speaking, using only non-verbal communication to finish the task.
On Wednesday they had a 60 foot solar bag that blew up like a balloon and the campers witnessed how the sun’s energy and wind worked together.
Thursday, the youngsters had three legged races and on Friday all the campers participated in a race with their hands all interlocked.
“The kids learned to have fun and work together as a team this week,” stated Hernandez. “For experiments we focused on many things such as density, air flow, and osmosis.”
Since the camp is called Science Camp there were multiple experiments that were fit into each day like ice cream in a bag where the kids used simple ingredients and put them all in a bag to make homemade ice cream. They learned the scientific principles of how the ingredients combined to form the frozen treat.
The ‘rocket powered skateboard’ experiment involved a 2 liter bottle of cola taped to a skateboard and a pack of Mentos that was supposed to help propel the skateboard down the road.
The ‘elephant toothpaste’ experiment had a few ingredients that caused quite the oozing mess, which was why that particular experiment was held outdoors.
There were several other experiments that the campers participated in like the color spinning wheel, crystal trees, fluffy raisins, stand up celery, lava lamps, pop rocks, patriotic disappearing colors, ketchup, sour candy bubble test, expanding gummy worms, and many more.
Recreation Leader Joye Thompson expressed that in five days of camp with 31 campers they were able to do several experiments each day.
“This year was my first year doing this specific camp, Science Fun in the Sun camp and I loved it, stated Hernandez. “It was full of surprises.”
The camp participants wrote in their scientist journals everyday on what their hypothesis would be for that day’s experiment and then the next day the campers would enter in their journals the result of the experiment.
“I believe all the kids loved all the experiments, especially the messy ones. Even though some experiments didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to, the kids and I all enjoyed doing the experiments,” said Hernandez. “It was such a great group of kids to work with and the other leaders I was placed with did an amazing job with the kids as well.”
July 28 through Aug. 1 will be Games Galore Camp, open to kids 6 to 12 years old. Call the city at 863-7150 to sign up or for more information.
