The week of July 27th, 4-H Agriscience in the City taught at a STEM camp in Laboiteaux Woods as part of a partnership with the Cincinnati Parks. The camp itself is run by the Cincinnati Parks and has two great instructors, Ginger and Jason. Each day starts out with an introduction to a certain STEM idea or project. For instance, one morning the campers built and continued to improve upon their own catapults designed to launch small Styrofoam balls. 4-H would come in after the morning introduction, offering new lessons and ideas to enlighten the campers to different applications of STEM.
Each day 4-H would offer a new lesson and activity, some classics coming from 4-H activity books, other original lessons developed by Hamilton County’s 4-H director, Tanya Horvath. The way the day would go, is that the campers would split into two self-selected groups (which at this age meant there was a boys and a girls group). Before lunch, one group would go on a hike and the other group would stay at the shelter with 4-H. After lunch the two groups flip-flopped.
4-H taught at the camp 4 out of the 5 days. The first day was an especially exciting activity. The subject was oil spills and the activity was a simulated oil spill clean up. Rice played the part as oil and at first all the campers had to clean up the oil was a hexbug and a cup. They were not allowed to use their hands at all. The challenge had a story component to it, with an update every five minutes. An update included additional supplies and an report of the damage and death count from the oil spill. The campers struggled to clean up the oil and began to understand how machines can be helpful and detrimental and how bureaucracy can be inefficient in dealing with emergencies.
The next day was another activity discovered and developed by Tanya called Beak mobiles. Using simple supplies like plates, rubberbands, popsicle sticks, a toilet paper roll and a skewer the campers had to design and build a car that can create its own energy to move. The lesson focused on the energy change from potential to kinetic. The students got 5 minutes to think independently before seeing the model mobile. Afterwards, they could use the model to build their mobile or still design their own. After every group had built a mobile, they tested their mobiles against each other in categories like speed, distance, control and ability to move in a straight line.
4-H did not do an activity on the third day, but returned on the fourth day to make lava lamps with the campers. This simple activity does not come from a 4-H book, but does come from OSU Extension. It is an easy way to explain the basics of chemistry. The campers poured water with food coloring into a clear film container and then oil on top. Then they added an Alka-Seltzer tablet, which dissolved in the water creating bubbles. The bubbles traveled from the water into the oil where they struggled to move up and created groovy shapes and designs just like a lava lamp.
The final day, the kids did one of the most basic 4-H programs, Rockets Away. In this activity, the campers built rockets out of 2-liter bottles and cardboard and got to launch them. There is more to this than just building the rocket, the campers aimed for the highest rocket and most efficient. Then they used math to estimate their rockets height and trajectory.
4-H Agriscience in the City had a great time at the Laboiteaux Woods camp and if just one camper walked away knowing a little bit more about science, technology, engineering or math, then their involvement will have been a success.