Space Tech Camp Overview

***The classes and their content are subject to change each year depending on product availability and the goal of the Space Tech Camp to implement the best strategies.  Below is an overview of what has been done in the past.  Most of the classes and descriptions are the same this year.  

The Space Tech Camp takes the children on a journey as if they were the scientists trying to figure out what is out there in space.  The best way to study something in most cases is to examine the object(s), pick it up, look at it, scratch it, etc.  So they try to build rockets using air, a solid fuel, liquid fuel, and a solid and liquid fuel together.  They also work through the problems with controlling
the rocket(s) once you get them to fly so that the rocket ends up where you want it to be.  So one of the classes is dedicated to rocketry and flight. Once we see how difficult it is to actually go out there into space to explore, we start to look for maybe the second best way to study it and that
is maybe to look at space both directly and indirectly.  

   This is where our Starlab class comes in.  This portable planetarium shows the children the night sky and starts off with the historical perspective of what the early peoples thought the stars and planets were.  Constellations are discussed and students can make up their own.  This leads
them into the spectroscope and telescope.  Students learn about focal length of lenses and how our ancestors used these devices to bring the skies closer to them.  Both optical telescopes and radio telescopes are used and the children get to use both.  Star color and temperature is also discussed as well as light and its speed.
   Another class that is unique to any camp in Lake Charles is our "Toys In Space."  Here we give each camper a toy and ask them to play with it.  Then we ask them to brainstorm on what they think this toy would do in space with micro-gravity.  They take the toy home and discuss this with their parents.  Every camper gets to express what he/she thought on the next day.  Then a tape is played showing the actual astronaut playing with that toy in space. The students get to keep the toys.  There is a toy for each day of camp.  The campers also see how unusual the environment is for a human to survive in space as they observe these astronauts.
   The technology component is next.  We use a program called Museum Madness, along with Orbits to challenge the students to solve problems dealing with space.  For example, how does the gravity of Mercury compare with that of the Earth or Pluto or the Sun or whatever.  A visual of eggs dropping at the same time illustrates the comparison.  The campers can then calculate how much they would weigh on the various planets if they could go there.  The actual dropping of eggs and timing their descent is performed by the campers.  Other activities derived from the Orbits program are also performed.  Museum Madness is a computer program that  tests their knowledge of what they have learned in the other areas of the camp by having the campers help put a science museum back in order after its computer has been infected by a virus and has jumbled up all of the scientific displays in the various rooms.  Campers must use the theory of flight to help the Wright Brothers fly for the first
time.  This program is excellent and covers all aspects of flight as well as other areas of science.
  Well, this is just the morning or the afternoon camps.  The All Day camp has the children do all of the things above, but then they stay with us and eat a lunch that they have brought from home.  When the afternoon students arrive to go through the same thing that the morning students have done, the
All Day students split into a separate area of the science wing and proceed to go into the actual creation of models, figuring the mathematical problems of drag vs. lift, fin configuration, etc.  They will ride on a real hovercraft and they will make their own simple model and discuss Newton's 3
Laws of Motion in great detail.  They will make model rockets from kits and several airplanes from a set of directions to launch and fly on the last day when we have our Open House.  And everyone will pause at the end for us to take the time to reflect on just what we have gained from our experiences
from the week of Space Tech Camp.