By Derek Cornet

Science topic of U of S camps this week in tri-communities

Jul 13, 2018 | 12:00 PM

Eight students with the University of Saskatchewan were in the tri-communities this week as part of an effort to get more children interested in science.

Two separate SCI-FI Science Camps were held by the students at Air Ronge’s Gordon Denny Community School and the Lac La Ronge Indian Band’s Bell’s Point Elementary School. Instructor Bailey Dietrich, who is a third-year student at the U of S, said the camps are about teaching the kids more about science in a hands-on way.

“Our goal is to create a passion for science more or less,” he said. “It’s not necessarily the most attractive thing in some school topics for kids.”

With about 40 children between Grades 2-9 attending the camps, Dietrich noted participants were split into groups according to their age. While the younger attendees learned about simple concepts, he said older kids studied more complex topics like biology, coding, forensics and robotics. One project included building operational cars out of Lego complete with engines, tires and axels.

Dietrich also added much of what they did was hands-on, so kids could take what they built home with them. He said, the idea is they can show their family and friends what they did and explain the mechanics of it. Today was the final day for the SCI-FI Science Camps at both schools.

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“For example, we made a marshmallow launcher,” Dietrich said. “We learned about elastic potential energy converted into kinetic energy, and how it affects how far you pull back on the elastic to shoot the marshmallow.”

derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno