Elementary students invent at STEAM camp
At Windsor Park Elementary School's Camp Invention, elementary school students kick off the summer with science, math and art.
"I'm super excited," camper and second-grader Jaxon Navarrette said with his hand in a fish tank he'd decorated to test out a robotic fish. "I love robotics and I love science. I want to be an astronaut."
"I want to be a fossil-finder," camper Andrew Feimster chimed in, fingers in his own fish bowl.
The camp is a national program that several schools in the Coastal Bend have offered in recent years. Several Corpus Christi ISD schools offer the camp, as does Flour Bluff Intermediate School.
Windsor Park Principal Kimberly Bissell first became aware of the program when her own children signed up for Flour Bluff’s camp. She was impressed with the activities.
"Its focus is on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) and on inventors and inventions," Bissell said. "The purpose is to stimulate minds to want to create and invent."
She brought the camp to Windsor Park, where it has been offered five times over the past three years during summer and school breaks. It is available for first through fifth grade students.
"Word of mouth has spread, and now we're the largest we've ever been," Bissell said.
At Windsor Park, there was a fee for campers to participate, but scholarships were available, Bissell said. Camps held at Title I schools hold the camp for free, she added.
Over the course of the four-day camp, children tinkered with small robots and learned about circuitry, scientific principals and inventors.
Many of the children agreed that the jellyfish room, where they decorated fish tanks for robotic fish, was their favorite part of the camp.
"This class is called robotic aquatics, and all week we have been designing a habitat for jellyfish," Windsor Park math specialist Kelly Cable said. "We've learned about symbiotic relationships with ocean animals and about the type of environment they live in."
The children also learned that oceanographers and scientists sometimes rely on robots to collect data, before taking home their own simple swimming robot.
Other lessons focused on LED lights and circuit boards as they took apart and put back together the robots.
Down the hall, other children hooked wires to batteries to make a device spin. By pressing markers and gobs of paint onto pieces of paper placed onto the spinning surface, they used their "arty bot" inventions to make artwork.
"I enjoy it," camper Mary Tan said. "It's pretty fun. We can make art things."
A third group designed a course on which to run marbles.
Emma Butts and Sophia Buckwalter worked together to problem-solve, using pipe cleaners to stabilize a cardboard course and taping pieces of straw along the course to create friction.
The camp was "awesome," according to Buckwalter, and "amazing," according to Butts.
"They're innovating and creating and engineering," Windsor Park teacher Alma Garza said. "The whole process is just engaging them. If they aren't engaged, they aren't learning."
Olivia Garrett reports on education and community news in South Texas. Contact her at olivia.garrett@caller.com. You can support local journalism with a subscription to the Caller-Times.
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Windsor Park elementary students invent at STEAM camp
