Monday, June 22, 2015


Twenty-nine 4th graders attended the 2015 Summer Science camp from June 8th to the 18th!  Students participated in lots of fun scientific activities with a different theme each day. Dee Dee Grant coordinated the camp, and Taylor Dickey and Jodi Crile assisted in carrying out all the great activities!  Lorna Eliason, the program director, was also instrumental in the success of the camp.

Day 1:  The theme was "Eggciting Egg Science!"  Students learned about inertia and Newton's Laws of  Motion with Mrs. Grant conducting the broom, egg, pizza pan demonstration.  Super exciting!! The eggs stay at rest, but the pizza pan flies in motion.  Mrs. Dickey showed students how strong an egg is, and students were able to stack seven to nine dictionaries on a single egg placed in clay in a triangular pattern with washers stacked at the other two corners!  Mrs. Crile demonstrated air pressure with the "Egg in the Bottle Trick."  We also made an egg squirt water after soaking it in vinegar and then in water!  Students then engineered parachutes to carry an eggstronaut down from the roof of the school without breaking.  (Unfortunately, not all the eggstronauts survived!)

Day 2:  Jennifer, the education specialist from NPPD, came from O'Neill, Nebraska, and we had a great day learning about natural resources, solar and wind power, electricity, and circuits. Campers got to use wind meters, build circuits, play games, and other activities dealing with a variety of topics.  It was a great day, and we appreciated Jennifer's assistance.

Day 3:  This day was "Space Science."  NASA's Space School Musical helped us learn about the planets.  (Reminder to students:  Look this one up on-line to see the other segments about comets, asteroids, the moon, and so on!)  Each team of students made a fact poster of a planet, and we shared the information with each other.    We watched Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Swinney's silly "Stella Stardust Interviews the Sun." video, and then we made edible models of the sun.  We frosted a cookie and added red and yellow sprinkles to give it a look of a granular surface; mini chocolate chips for the sun spots; and Twizzler pull and peel licorice to make solar flares.  The sun wasn't cooperative with us to use the solar telescope, but we tried.  We also took some time to learn about prairie dogs so that we could observe them on our field trip.  Did you know that they are very social animals?  They "kiss" or bump teeth to greet and recognize each other.  They have very intricate burrows with bedrooms and bathrooms. They bark and swish their tails to indicate danger, and put their hands in the air to indicate that all is safe!

Day 4:  What a wonderful trip we had to Wind Cave this day to learn about geology!  It was a rainy day, so a great day to be underground, but our stop to observe the prairie dogs wasn't the greatest!   They didn't want to play in the rain!  Our guide was very good, and the students very impressed with Wind Cave.  We are excited to learn more about Persistence Cave that is being explored right now near Wind Cave!

Day 5:  There is a lot of science in a pizza, believe it or not!  Mrs. Crile assisted the students in using the microscopes to observe mushrooms, onions, and other cool stuff.  Mrs. Dickey taught the students about wheat, and Mrs. Grant did some experiments with yeast!  Students found out about yeast first hand by making pizza dough.  Students made their own individual pizzas, and they were fantastic!

Day 6:  Part one of the day was water science.  Students learned about surface tension and saw how many drops they could fit on a nickel.  We also used sodium alginate and calcium chloride to made water spheres that we could drink--kind of an edible water bubble/bottle--but we didn't really like the taste of the outside!  Mrs. Grant hadn't tried this one before, so we had to experiment a little to get it right.  It was interesting!!  The second part of the morning was spent working on an engineering project that students really enjoyed.  Each team made a marble roller coaster.

Day 7:  The first part of this day was spent finishing and sharing our marble roller coasters.  They were very imaginative!  We then moved to "Snap, Crackle, Pop!"  We made a lot of gas!  We made "Electric Eels" with baking soda and vinegar and ice volcanoes!  We tried out our fluorescent jello we made with tonic water the day before.  It glows with a black light!!  Cool!  We made a chemical reaction for snack by making fizzing lemonade.  Students squeezed a lemon into some baking soda and citric acid, added some sugar and water, and had a tasty drink.  We found that diet pop will float, and regular pop with sink because sugar makes regular pop more dense.  We found that adding Nerds candy to pop will make a balloon blow up more than if you add Pop Rocks, and finally, we did the notorious "Diet Coke and Mentos" explosion!

Day 8:  We used our senses today!  Mrs. Crile taught the students about rainbows and prisms.  Mrs. Grant showed campers how our sense of smell affects our sense of taste.   We made solar cookers to use on Day 9 out of  Pringles cans, and Mrs. Crile did some fun optical illusion activities.

Day 9:  Our final day was spent at Chadron State Park.  Amanda from Nebraska Game & Parks showed us a great time.  We did a nature scavenger hunt and played some games learning about critters and habitats.  We set up our solar cookers with a hot dog, and they worked!!  They actually didn't take any longer to heat up than it did for Mrs. Grant to get the charcoal going!!  We had a special treat and got to ride the paddle boats.  While one group was paddle boating, the other hand-cranked the ice cream freezer, and we learned about "physical changes to matter."  Our hot dogs and ice cream were delicious!

Check out the previous posts for more pictures!!

Solar Cookers!

Egg Drop Engineering

Natural Resources Game


Making Edible Model of the Sun

Fluorescent Jello

Tuesday, June 16, 2015


June 16th pictures shown below!!  Each team is showing off their marble roller coasters, and there are some pictures of making a chemical reaction for our snack - fizzing lemonade!

Tough Chicks show off their marble roller coaster!

The Cyber Guys even designed a news broadcast to go with their creation!

The Wild Men made their marble hit a target at the end!  

Here is the cool creation made by the Cool Bros!

The Science Riders show off the seasons on each side of their roller coaster!

This creation by the Awesome Pizza Pals is a water slide park - complete with a duck sitting on an egg!!

Monday, June 15, 2015


Mera & Gabby show off their water bottle balls!

Pizza Science  - Students used microscopes to look at mushrooms ; experimented with yeast, learned about wheat, and topped the day off by making pizza - It was terrific!

Space Day at Summer Science Camp

A Rainy Day Spent Underground at Wind Cave!!

Engineering Activity - Marble Roller Coasters!

Haylee & Kasaiah making an edible model of the SUN

Engineering is hard work - Look at the mess we made!!

We have enjoyed the first part of Summer Science Camp - The pictures are scrambled up from day to day, but we have had a great time exploring many different areas of science!  More to come the rest of this week!