Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp

Saturday was the culmination of the 2009 ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science and the campers all showed how much they learned as each camper participated in team presentation to over 200 parents, teachers, staff and fellow campers. After the photos you can view a 6 minute video chronicaling the 2009 camp.

Each team members had a specific part of the the presentation to research, prepare in PowerPoint and deliver to the audience verbally

Teachers and campers learned together

The "Cohort" of teachers. It couldn't have happened without you!! More than one camper said they were the best teachers they've ever had!

Each team created a powerpoint presentation, a poster...

... and a model of their space shuttle. Each one was unique, showing the crew member’s talents and creativity!

This one even had steam (powered by dry ice)...

All the comforts of home...

Complete with two rovers...

Thumbs UP Mission Control!!!

The Spirit of Opportunity... each camper left with goals to make the most of each opportunity!

Space Force...

Over 200 family members came to OSU to hear their camper’s final presentations.

Dr. Roger Rennekamp, shuttle commander for all of Oregon’s 4-H programs, proudly presented medallions to all campers.

Campers said a fond fairwell to new friends, safely landing the Mission to Mars 2009

After a busy week of learning and preparing our projects and presentation, we’re up for fun and games!

Let the fun begin!

Teamwork and concentration... that's what it's all about!

... a little focus and cooperation help too.

Now thats how to do a 3-legged race!

On to the sack races... watch out!!!

The SMILES mak it all worth it!

Everyone's a winner

Sights and sounds from classes and around campus….

Working on the mouse trap cars...

Ready to roll...

The challenger!

How many campers does it take to deflate a birthday cake?!?

Off to Dixon Recreation Center to burn some calories!

Hoop time..

more hoops...

A goot time was had by all...

Off the boards..

Soccer time at the picnic..

Dr Harris and Christina Konvicka from ExxonMobil came to visit on Tuesday. Dr Harris talked to us all about his training and experience of achieving his dream to become an astronaut. He inspired us all to dream big. Christina, who is a graduate from OSU, lead us on a journey to “Escape from Harris Island”. She gave us a scenario of being stranded on an island with our treasure of valuable data, and we had to escape from the island because a volcano was about to erupt. Our assignment was to build a raft to carry us and our valuable cargo off the island. We were given two straws and a piece of aluminum foil to build a raft to hold as many pennies (representing our valuable cargo) as possible. One team built a raft that broke the old record of holding 504 pennies. The winning raft held 586 pennies!!!

Dr Harris spent the afternoon and had dinner with us, so we got to ask him lots of questions and get to know him. Wednesday morning, he had breakfast with us then talked to us more about what it’s like to be an astronaut and how important it is to study hard to achieve our dreams. He also watched and helped us as we worked on our “Mission to Mars” projects.

Dr Harris talks with us about being an astronaut

Rachael got to help Dr Harris

Christina guided us in an experiment to "Escape From Harris Island"

Carefully planning their seaworthy vessel

Getting some expert pointers before launch

Dr Harris had breakfast with us Wednesday morning

Dr Harris spoke with us more in the morning

Monday evening Liz Johnson, a biology teacher in Sweet Home,  brought her collection of reptiles, amphibians and a tarantula to camp.  She told us all about them and who ever wanted to could touch, or even hold some of them!

The friendliest lizard in town!

What a beautiful necklace!

My buddy!

What's that on your shoulder!?!?

The trantula is awesome

...and he likes to crawl around in my hands

Laps full of snakes

Only the teacher got to hold the snapping turtle... very carefully!

We spent parts of two days learning about tsunami waves. On Thursday we had a great teacher from the Hinsdale Wave Research Lab who taught us all about tsunamis and the research that they are doing on predicting waves and planning for evacuation from places that might get hit by one.

Saturday we all loaded on a school bus and traveled to Newport.  We spent most of the day touring the Hatfield Marine Science Center.  We had a great class where we got to handle some really cool tide pool critters.  We were able  to watch them eat and observe how they moved around their environment.

Hatfield Marine Science Center and Beach Exploration

In the "Touch Tanks" we got to touch several kinds of tide pool animals!

We learned some really interesting things from all the great educational exhibits

New friends and fun times

A rainbow of critters in the tide pool touch tanks..

Some felt really different than we expected... really COOL!

We got up close and personal with some of the animals (No, mom, that's not a cafeteria tray!)

More tide pool buddies...

Gimmie five... hundred!

Face to Fishy Face

A short visit to the beach, before heading back to OSU

...an engineering lesson in silica-dynamics..

... and a quick lesson in aerodynamics. Just enough of a breeze for LIFT-OFF...

Parents and blog followers….  we’ll be out in the field over the weekend, so check back Monday for blog entries about our weekend educational outings!!!

Our first full day of camp was busy getting to know the schedule, each other, and learning to get around campus.

Hey, and guess what!!! KMTR TV news from Springfield was out today, so check out the news and see who they interviewed!

To see the KMTR news story, visit their website at http://www.kmtr.com/, then, in the grey menu bar near the top, click on “Video”.  Then click on the link that says “Learning their way around the lab.”

Each day in science lab, we want to answer a question related to our Mission to Mars. Today’s question was, “Identify places in the carbon cycle where chemical energy is stored and where chemical energy is released”.

The science and math teachers were really cool as they introduced the topic with a skit about our Mars mission.

All our meals are in a campus dining hall where we select what we want to eat. Dinner last night and meals today are a treat as we see all the variety, and want to try everything!

On a space mission we have to be extremely careful about only taking nutritious food. After each meal during camp we are weighing the food waste by POD. The POD 6 girls took way too much food at lunch, and are going to work at cutting back to avoid waste. The POD 7 boys were awesome, and didn’t waste anything from their lunch today. Way to go, guys! There’s a fierce competition going on between every POD.

Oregon State is the home of the Beavers. Go Beavs!!!!!

Today was our introduction to the computer lab. The instructor is an OSU computer science student, who has lots of experience with kid’s camps. She helped us with internet safety, basics of powerpoint and we started blogging.

Afternoon classes in engineering are in a funky old campus building…but it’s comfortable. Today we had an overview of the amazing things engineers do in their jobs and for society. It’s cool to think about all the career opportunities we can have.

We started designing and building hydrogen fuel cell cars, which we’ll keep refining this week.