Students take part in science camp
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Still only a middle schooler, Eman Shamshad could turn out to be the next Nobel Prize-winning scientist responsible for a discovery that changes the world.
She and more than 30 other young students are in the midst of attending an academic summer camp that focuses on the STEM courses of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The camp, now in its 10th year, is run by Princeton University through the Community House program at the PACE Center for Civic Engagement. The school is covering all the costs this year for the children to attend the month-long program on campus.
Each week, 32 students go on field trips and take lessons that graduate students at the university have designed in those core subjects in which American children are lagging well behind their international counterparts. According to Teach for America, the United States ranks 17th in science and 25th in math among developed countries.
That’s where the STEM camp comes in.
Each week, the pupils cover a different topic, such as biology and ecology. Week one, which began June 30, covered material science; the hands-on part comes when they put into practice the subjects they learn about.
During the second day of the program, they tried to get across the reflecting pool behind the Woodrow Wilson School in boat-like contraptions, in a lesson to teach them about buoyancy.
”And the hope is to be able to provide a fun but also sort of very hands-on and tactile-enrichment engagement for students in the STEM area to support their academic work during the coming school year,” said Charlotte Collins, assistant director at the Pace Center. “So we want to try to sharpen the tools in their tool kit so that they can be really well prepared for when they launch into their next school year.”
The STEM camp draws students from John Witherspoon Middle School, where Eman is a rising seventh-grader, and Princeton Charter School. Camp goers are either in middle school, about to enter middle school this September or just finished and are headed to high school.
The children fall into either being low-income, minority or first one in their family who will attend college. There already is a waiting list for next year for children to enter the STEM camp.
Nora Kreike-Martin, who just finished the sixth grade at the charter school, said STEM camp is a place to “meet new people and have a lot of fun at the same time.” She considers history her favorite subject but said she also likes science.
”I think for our participants who are in middle school, the goal is to sort of ignite a spark, so that they can discover a passion and really start to think about the way what they’re learning in the classroom applies to their everyday life,” said Ms. Collins.
The learning is not just for the pupils. Eight graduate and four undergraduate students work together to develop the curriculum and co-teach.
Danni Tu, a rising senior majoring in math, is one of the undergrads who got involved.
”The biggest challenge is engaging middle schoolers and showing them that science is actually a part of everyday life,” Ms. Tu said on a sunny Tuesday morning where the children are whooping it up as they get across the pool.
So what is it like to teacher middle schoolers?
”Scary, but every day is a new day,” said rising junior Eliana Glatt, a psychology major. “And honestly, because I’ve worked at camps for 4- and 5-year-olds, they teach you a lot more as middle schoolers than any other age group, because they are just so excited about everything.”
Ms. Tu said she was in middle school when she got interested in chemistry and astrophysics as a seventh-grader. She credited her teachers for helping her to discover those subjects.
”And hopefully,” Ms. Tu said, “that’s what I’ll try to do for them as well.”