Outreach

This week was robotics week! We also had Nicole join us as Mr G (Justin) was away for a well-deserved break. Check out our Oka Ferry selfie!

We learned a lot at our camps this week in Biology Week! We talked about how biology is the study of living things and did a couple hands-on activities to explore the different aspects of it.

We did our first lab and extracted DNA from strawberries. The little scientists learned how all living things have DNA, which instructs our bodies to make us look different from each other and other living things.

We’re back from Chemistry week! Campers did lots of experiments this week. They started by seeing a chemical reaction up close with elephant toothpaste - we carefully mixed our ingredients and dyed them fun colors, then we went outside and watched it expand out of our bottles, in an exothermic reaction that creates fun foam too!

This week is Flight Week. We designed structures to cradle and protect an egg when we dropped it from different heights. Campers found a wide range of ways to approach the problem and constructed structures with combinations of parachutes, padding and various types of cradles for the egg.  

Now that all of our partner day camps are running, we did a full week of programming at camps in Ahkwesahsne, Kanehsatake, and Tyendinaga! This week was Astronauts Week, and campers made bike pump bottle rockets and did astronaut training in our dizzy obstacle course.

We’re back from our first week on the road, Engineering Week! Our campers in Kanehsatake learned about the role of mining engineers and how they work to protect the environment by extracting precious metals and rocks from the earth while causing as little damage as possible. Campers tried their hand at mining the chocolate chip “diamonds” out of their cookies without crumbling the earth around it, then they snacked on their cookies when they were finished-yum!

This week we took to the road with some exciting chemistry activities for the youth. Campers enjoyed being creative and making a mess while making play-doh and elephant toothpaste. They were able to see how household groceries can be mixed and react to create new substances with different appearances and properties.

This week we took to the road to explore the world of LEGO WeDo 2.0 robotics with campers! We explained the concepts of robots and their applications in the real world.  We then explored how it is possible to construct robots from Lego. From there, we moved into programming via the WeDo software app for iPad. These particular robots use Bluetooth technology to communicate with the programmers’ iPads.  The campers learned various aspects of coding in order to make the robots move forward and backwards, change the lights colours, and make noises.

This week we decided to test the campers’ creativity and team work skills with fun building stations that allowed students to design and build anything they could think of! The campers got to experience different stations that allowed them to develop and work on specific skills and problem solving.

It’s the 4^th week on the road for us – already half over, can’t believe it! This past week we worked with the campers to explore the power of the sun. Together we discussed the concepts of the sun's renewable energy, photovoltaic cells, and the role that solar energy plays in modern times. The students were then able to directly see the impacts of the sun's energy by making UV lizards and constructing their own solar ovens to cook s'mores.