By HEIDI GASSER
BG Independent News
School may be out for the summer, but kids at Bowling Green Middle School’s Camp Invention spent a week dissecting robots, building miniature rocketships and investigating crime scenes.
From June 8-12, kids K-6 learned through curriculum provided by Camp Invention, a nationwide initiative sponsored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In each classroom, the children alternated between working in collaborative groups and focusing on individual brainstorming. The young scientists were highly engaged and excited to complete their projects, usually centered around imaginative inventing.
The learning material was broken down into four modules to introduce innovation in various environments. The first module, Make Waves, focused on the physics of wave movement, buoyancy, and asked campers to design special surfboards that solve problems. Second, Space Morphers allowed kids to build rockets and design inventions to live in space. Fur-rensics (forensics), third, provided campers with capybara robots that would be equipped with kid-crafted devices to investigate a crime scene. And fourth, the Infringers room taught patent laws for the children to learn how to protect their inventive work.
Lessons were structured to blend STEM concepts with age-appropriate opportunities to imagine and create. Lily Ahmed, one of several camp directors, said that before high school, kids are still becoming acquainted with how different scientific disciplines interact.
“A lot of these kids in our district may not understand how science, technology, engineering, arts and math work together in the real world and how beneficial it really is for them to have these skills,” Ahmed said. “Even in the first two days of camp, I have seen kids with amazing ideas on how to fix problems that they are seeing in their modules.”
The kids’ favorite projects included the capybara robots, rockets, surfboards and tinfoil boats.
Chyla, 11, said that the capybara project in the Fur-rensics room was her favorite, where students were asked to use their imagination to build gadgets for their capybara toys allowing them to find a criminal who destroyed the “capybara spa” with litter. Chyla said she likes science the best because of experiments like these.
“My favorite subject is science, because I really like to experiment and observe,” Chyla said. “I like solving problems to interact with people and collaborate.”
Another camper, Evie, 9, named her capybara “Cutie.” Evie said she liked taking apart the animal robots to see their mechanical interior, and that she looked forward to taking her capybara home after a completed mission on Friday.
“Science is the most coolest because you get to do a lot of fun stuff and you can make projects,” Evie said.
BG Schools psychologist and camp instructor Kaila Beckrow said her favorite project was the capybara project too, although the curriculum’s premise was tricky to decipher at first.
“On day one, I gave the children instructions that I hardly understood myself. To my surprise, the kiddos got started without hesitation. I stood back in amazement at the creations these students were making. The amount of creativity and simplicity simply blew my mind … and the best part? The excitement in their eyes from explaining what they had created. They were so proud of themselves,” Beckrow said.
In the Make Waves module, Parker, 12, said he discovered “a bunch of stuff about water.”
“My favorite project has been the water one, where we take tin foil metal boats and put nuts and washers in them to see how much we can put in there,” Parker said.
Julia Cooper, paraprofessional instructor, said she appreciated the “magical and mechanical” nature of the kids’ projects. Cooper also explained that the boat exercise taught kids about buoyancy, and how to engineer a vessel that can sustain weight.
“We had a contest to see who could fit the most washers on their little tin foil boat. They were all picking up on the fact that the boat bottoms that had the biggest surface area were the way to go,” Cooper said.
Elizabeth McIntosh, BG High School science teacher, worked with campers to design their own “planets, space rovers, greenhouses, structures for transporting water and power, and suits to keep people and pets safe on their planets,” in Space Morphers, among other projects including hatching faux eggs, growing crystal trees and building rockets. For most exercises, the students were asked to draw and explain a prototype design before building a 3D version of their vision.
“I love watching the campers develop their ideas and then be able to actually bring them to life,” McIntosh said. “It has been an amazing week.”
Beckett, 8, explained how his favorite project, the rocket, became functional through a step-by-step procedure he had memorized.
“We had this plastic tube and a rubber band, we put it in the tube, we put a zip tie, put duck tape over the ziptie, put wings on, pulled the rubber band and it flew,” Beckett said.
Children in all classrooms engaged in focused, individual brainstorming and group collaboration in order to problem-solve. McIntosh said she valued the “emphasis on team work,” at camp. McIntosh also said that science camps like Camp Invention help reduce the “summer slide,” a term used by educators to describe the academic decline that can occur over educationally dormant summers.
Beckrow said that the camp was an “enriching opportunity for growth.”
“Whether it is a sports camp, music camp or science camp, children are given the opportunity to branch out and connect with other peers throughout the community. Camps like Camp Invention can help kids of Wood County find new niches, interests and potentially career paths,” Beckrow said.
Ahmed had only 50 days to coordinate camp logistics after funding was secured from Camp Invention. Supported by 70 camp scholarships, families within BG City School District were not required to pay the standard $285 fee.
“Camp Invention is a nationally funded program,” Ahmed said. “We had 25 boxes of materials sent to us. They gave us everything.”
According to Ahmed, camps like Camp Invention are critical to keeping imagination alive in scientific pursuits. As a BG High School instructor, Ahmed said she would like to see the attitudes she has seen in K-6 kids mirrored in her older student cohort.
“I want to bring some more of this creativity to my older kids. We lose it; we get lost with grades; we get lost with being perfect the first time. These kids are willing to try so many different things, have fun and get creative,” Ahmed said.
Camp Invention offers 1,500 programs nationwide to reach students with its innovative curriculum. Asher, 8, said that the experience was one to remember.
“I think this camp is the best camp I’ve ever been to,” Asher said. “The other part I like about it is that it’s six hours of fun.”
