Your Experience with STEM Camps? (Morrisville: 2014, elementary school, shop)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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Does anyone have experience with any of the Triangle area STEM programs (Science Fun for Everyone, Zaniac, Mad Science and others)? I am looking for reviews, or thoughts from parents on what their child got out of the program.
Did your child learn a lot? Were they just entertained with fun colors, loud noises and fizzing reactions? Were they given experiments, or were they just given a set of instructions to follow/ a set project to do?
I have been to some free programs at the library, and while they were incredibly entertaining, I felt like the kids didn’t take away as much knowledge as they could have. My 7 year old really seems to like it, and I’m curious about the educational value of these programs.
Also, does anyone know if there is a one-stop-shop website that summarizes and reviews such programs?
Science Fun for Everyone regularly does in-school field trips at my kid's Elementary School. The kids really enjoy them & seem to learn. I don't think the teachers would continue to use them if they didn't see educational value in their programs.
My son did 5 or 6 sessions of Science Fun for Everyone over the years. They were definitely given experiments to do. My son always had fun and always wanted to go back.
Each day they send the parents write ups of what the kids did that day, so I went into my mail archives and picked one out at random. This one is from 2014...
This afternoon The Teslas (the older group) devoted their attention to optics. We built one of the earliest light capturing devices: the box camera! We learned that light traveling through a convex lens becomes inverted. Everyone worked to make two separate mechanisms which allow the cameras to focus on objects that are near or far away.
While The Teslas worked on their cameras, The Einsteins (the younger group) split into two groups to tackle two awesome activities. The first half began the afternoon in our Computer lab building with our Lego Robotic Kits. We saw automated top spinners, tweeting birds, boats that rocked back and forth and even airplanes that narrowly avoided crashing. Student's built models out of their Legos and then connected them to computers to program their movements.
While the first half of the group built their Lego creations, the other half began by mixing up their own batch of Silly Putty. The students mixed polyvinyl globules, sodium borate, and a little bit of all-purpose flour to make the thick sticky goo! Just like real putty, our mixture picks up ink off of a newspaper to make some stretchy funny faces!
I have a 3rd-grader and a 1st-grader. They've both been to Science Fun for Everyone several times and loved it. They've also had the in-school field trips as mentioned above, too. I feel like they both get some good knowledge out of it, as well.
Since Discovery Child in Morrisville decided to do away with their Track Out camps, we were looking for another place with computer stuff and happened upon Zaniac. My kids liked that one so much that they attended all 3 weeks during their last Track Out (Track 4). I thought it was great that they taught them about 3D printing, but my kids mostly loved it because of Minecraft and other games. I don't think they learned as much as at Science Fun, but they enjoyed being there (which has not always been the case when we've tried new camps).
Thank you for the feedback! It’s great that these camps are a lot of fun. When considering a STEM camp for my child, I am looking for one that will be fun and also instill some curiosity in him.
For anyone who has been to a camp, did you notice any change in your child after the camp? Were they more curious? Did they want to explore more, or try to repeat the project at home? Maybe they started making more observations, or were more confident when approaching something new at school. Anything that would suggest that the camp made an impact on your child’s thinking?
Do the camps give the kids more activities to do when the program is done to try to extend the learning?
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