Nearly 25 local rising fifth graders interested in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) built a bridge, blew up a watermelon and made ice cream, as part of a Summer STEM Camp from July 28 – August 1, the third and final week of the camp this year.
The camp is hosted by Drexel University's School of Education and funded by a grant from PECO.
“Summer STEM Camp allows children to experience a variety of STEM careers and career pathways,” said Hope Yursa, PhD, camp director and an assistant clinical professor in the School of Education. “Each day the children participated in a variety of hands on activities, but then they actually got to go into the field to experience real-life applications.”
For example, decked out in hard hats, lab coats and goggles, the students were actively engaged in building different types of bridges from limited materials, before visiting the Ben Franklin Bridge to learn from bridge engineers about what their job entails and how they entered the field.
While on a trip to learn about hydroelectric power, the campers took advantage of what they learned about bridges to find and identity the many bridges that cross the Chesapeake River Basin.
The campers took home the bridge-building kits to continue their learning. The camp also provided each camper with a fiction book and informational book about the various STEM fields and the people involved in them.
During a unit that provided an introduction to thermodynamics and heat transfer, teams of campers developed plans to save penguins.
They then traveled to the Philadelphia Zoo to learn more about what is endangering penguins and polar bears, and saw a variety of people engaged in careers that involved educating the public about loss of habitat due to global warming.
