Posted on 06/14/2019
More than 250 FHSD middle school students took a break from eating snow cones and riding bikes this summer to participate in this year’s STEM Camp at Saeger Middle School. The week-long camps provide students with hands-on activities that explore STEM subjects and professions in new and creative ways.
From adventuring through virtual and augmented realities to designing roller coasters out of paper, the students learned how different STEM areas can translate to everyday life. “I think it’s great to give kids an opportunity to see things in a different way,” said camp leader and Hollenbeck teacher Carmen Kenny-Hill. “They are used to science looking a certain way or math looking a certain way.”
Since the camp activities are not graded, students can simply focus on the excitement of learning. “We always hope that they have fun, but we hope that we’ve pushed them to try something new or maybe stick with something to figure out a problem. Hopefully, it sparks their interest in STEM topics,” continued Kenny-Hill.
Srinitya Rapolu, a seventh grader at Bryan, spends her free time watching forensic and detective videos on YouTube. The camp’s forensic lab brought her interest to life and gave her a chance to solve a case of her own. “I hope to learn something that would help me for my future career and even college,” said Rapolu. Along with the forensics lab, students also learned more about coding and scratch programming.
Jaydn Wells, a seventh grader at Barnwell, shared her appreciation for the camp and working with new people. “I feel like you can make a lot of new friends and you get to collaborate with people and learn how to do stuff. I like the paper roller coaster because I like working with people. You have different opinions on things and sometimes that works out. I just like the satisfaction of finishing it.” Even in the summer, there is still so much more to learn in FHSD!
