Summer Science Program Combines Camp and Class

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Summer is quickly coming to an end for Kodiak students, but a few local scholars are ready for a new year of learning, thanks in part to a science camp that wrapped up earlier this month. There’s no rest for science and the kids who want to learn it.

The ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp in Anchorage gave 48 middle school students from all over Alaska a chance to build spacecrafts, construct roller coasters, and test their technical skills on Things That Go through the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program.

Four of those students were from Kodiak.

But the takeaway is more than academic. ANSEP Regional Director Audrey Alstrom explains that students leave with life skills, like the ability to work with others.

“We have the students in almost all the projects work in teams of 2 or 3, and then also just that exposure of living away from home, [getting] that campus life experience and seeing what it is to be a college student and maybe imagine themselves being successful here when they get out of high school.”

And like many camps, one of the charms for the students is the other students.

Angelina Ong from Old Harbor named that aspect as a highlight of the program.

“I liked meeting all the new people and doing different experiences. We got to build a computer, and we did bridge building, and we got to test our bridges, and we got to go outside and to make maps.”

Angelina says they experimented with the same methods biologists use to track bears via GPS.

The middle school academy is open to 5th, 6th, or 7th graders. You can go here to find out more.

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