The Delights of Science!

The Four Day Science Camp

"My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, "So? Did you learn anything today?" But not my mother. "Izzy," she would say, "did you ask a good question today?" That difference - asking good questions - made me become a scientist." ~Isidor Isaac Rabi

So it goes, what makes kids ask questions? Questions that spark imagination. Questions that reveal the wonders of nature and the universe.

Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science. ~Edwin Powell Hubble, The Nature of Science, 1954



I am always on a quest to discover new ways of motivating my child. Ways to help him want to learn because you can take a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink. He must want to...nay need to. So this December, I signed him up for a science camp. To my great excitement, it was all hands on!

Some of the concepts he learned were: Chemical Reactions, How Thrust is Generated (using a balloon), Surface Tension (using a clip and water), Static Electricity (using a can and balloon), How Hot and Cold Molecules of Water Move (someday he'll need that to understand Ocean currents and how they influence global wind systems), Different Density of Different Liquids (making a lava lamp), a Chemical Reaction, Warm Air Has More Volume (using a balloon and hot water), Volcano (Chemical Reaction), How Sound Waves Travel Through Water (using drinking glasses and water).



My friends ask me, did he really learn all those concepts. Of course not! He experienced them. Every good science teacher will tell you how hard it is to explain even the most simple concepts to kids, who have very little experience with life.



They say question, explore, watch and wonder. That my son did, along with a group of his peers. They shared experiments, ideas and the pure joy of watching science come alive! My son came home and made his own experiments. The science camp revealed to him the true joy of learning! Thank you, Ana for these four wonderful days! Watch the clip below and you will hear the sheer delight in the discovery!

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