Over the last two weeks, SOCSD hosted the eighth annual Summer STEAM Camp at South Orangetown Middle School!
The two-week camp, coordinated by K-8 Instructional Science Coach Samantha Levine and School Social Worker Jessenia Cursio with the SOCSD Office of Curriculum and Instruction, includes daily sessions featuring hands-on activities that are focused on science, technology, engineering, art and math.
Lessons are led by SOCSD teachers and staff members, along with high school volunteers. Members of the TZHS SO BOTZ Robotics Team are also teaching our middle school students how to build and code SPARK robots and many of the incoming ninth graders now plan to join the Robotics team!
“We get excited every year to give students a wide variety of experiences in the STEAM curriculum. We try to have each age group have a science, technology, engineering, and art experience, with some math built in along the way,” explained Levine. “For instance, in addition to the robotics activities, SOMS students are taking a course on food science, building solar ovens, gardening, and engineering bridges and cars. Our fourth and fifth grade students are involved in Minecraft Edu, doing science around heart rate, creating graphs and glyphs based on facts about themselves, and creating art that helps calm their bodies and mimics famous artists. Second and third grade students are practicing coding with “Makey Makey” kits and “Ozobots” as well as learning about food chains and traits through alien genetics, doing engineering challenges and creating science toys like kaleidoscopes. Lastly, our K-1 students are learning about light and creating their own shadow puppets, building their own musical instruments, experimenting with slime recipes, building miniature cars, helping fairy tales characters solve their problems through engineering, and creating works of art. We also give all students time to move and learn about physical education with our teachers and coaches.”
Seventh grader Alice Y. was excited that she got to meet new people while at STEAM Camp. “I really enjoyed working with students in other grades that I don’t normally get to talk to and I met some new teachers! It has been such a fun experience and I learned a lot,” expressed Alice.
