Continuing our saga of cool STEM summer camps for the little engineer in your life, we have a great programs from Mad Science.
As we all know, the summer is a long break from education for children, but science summer camps are a great way to keep them educationally stimulated during the break. Mad Science summer camps are aimed to explore science topics with hands on experiments, giving them great education while still being a fun time. Mad Science has activities ranging from robots, inventing underwater vehicles, airplanes, and even making things explode!
The Spy Academy is also a great program that Mad Science offers that illuminates the forensics, science, and evidence gathering that goes into investigating crime scenes. Kids will get a hands on look at crime scenes and even get to decode secret messages, learn to use metal detectors and night vision googles. Mad Science offers a variety of summer camps this season including:
"Little Green Thumbs" aimed for kids 4-5 years old
Inventor's Camp
Robot Camps where the kids get to take home there own robot!
NASA Journey Into Outer space
To find out more, visit the Mad Science website at http://sacramento.madscience.org and register through the associated Parks and Rec department.
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Rachel: ...this morning. Are you smoking a little bit? You're a little...wow.
Host: Dropping it like it's hot, like you would say. Okay, the weather's heating up. We want to know what are we going to do with the kids during the summer? How about taking them to a summer camp where they actually can learn stuff? Perfect opportunity to match that up. We've got Mike Wisby who's our normal guest here with Tech To You. He's the one waving. We have Rachel Patter here from Mad Science. So welcome everybody here. Mike why don't you just go on and tell us, because you're hooking up with Mad Science. It's kind of a perfect marriage of fun.
Mike: Yeah, that's right. We want kids to know that science is fun. And then they'll learn and become real techies in the future. So we have Miss Sparks and...
Host: Miss Spocks?
Mike: Sparks.
Host: Sparks, okay. Miss Sparks, which is Rachel. And Pat you are?
Pat: Doctor Awesome.
Host: Doctor Awesome. Oh, I like that. Okay, I though Rod Carmike already had that name for science. But anyways. So what do we have here today that kids can do? Rachel what have you got going on here?
Rachel: So we have lots of different experiments set up representing our different camps. We have our robot camp over here. Kids will get the opportunity to build their own robots and take them home at the end of the week. We also have Grossology as well as some crazy chem work. So kids can learn the inside workings of their body and how chemistry plays into that.
Host: Doctor Awesome, you've got some goopy stuff going on over there.
Pat: Yes.
Host: What exactly...I'm going to come over here. What exactly is this stuff here?
Pat: This is our awesome slime stuff. We do slime in Grossology and Mad Lab, I believe. And we do awesome, really fun experiments with our slime. You're welcome to go ahead.
Host: So you can make slime and then you play with slime.
Pat: You play with slime.
Host: Ok. Now can this...could I rub this in like Amy's hair or something like that? Or would that not be cool?
Pat: You could, but I wouldn't suggest it.
Host: No no. There would probably be HR issues probably right after lunch.
Pat: Yeah.
Host: Ok. So I'm going to reload the slime and this does eventually come off my fingers, right?
Mike: Maybe.
Pat: It will.
Host: Ok.
Pat: You can always use my lab coat though.
Host: Oh ok. Well if you say so.
Pat: There you go.
Host: Wow that's good. It sort of came off. Alright so, wow, this is great stuff. So, for the kids what do they go for right away? I mean obviously my kids love to make slime. And then I don't know where it ends up. But tell me about whats going on with the camp. This is such a great idea for summer.
Pat: Well, our camps are a lot of fun because they run for three to six hours a day for a full week and we just do awesome just awesome experiments. We like to challenge the kids through playing. We don't have them sit down. They're not, I mean, well we do have them sit down. But they're not going to be, you know, studying a book or anything like that. It's all hands-on fun and science.
Host: So I know there's a website. We're going to talk more about it. So how do the kids, right now, if parents are watching and they want their kids to check it out. How would they do that?
Rachel: So there is our website sacmadscience.org. You just register through whatever the parks and rec department is that is coordinating all the events for the camps.
Host: Okay.
Rachel: Yeah.
Host: So how did this camp all come to be?
Pat: Mad Science has been around for 30 years and this franchise has been around for 10 years and we just found awesome, cool, fun science.
Host: You found cool stuff.
Pat: Awesome fun science.
Host: Mike, is there anything I'm leaving out? Come on.
Mike: Uh no. Take a look at this big rocket here. That's...
Host: Look at you, going for the obvious here. So kids will make something like this? Now once it's complete, are they shooting it or is it for show? What are we doing with this thing?
Pat: Well, for right now, it's for show. They're going to put it on their wall or whatever and just show it. They can launch it off. We have instructions on how to launch them off. Our ones that we make is right in front there. So that's our smaller rocket that they get to make.
Host: Okay, now will this crazy stuff, Rachel and Pat...now what is this stuff that we opened up with here? This thing is bubbling. It's almost like Halloween on the front step. What is this stuff?
Rachel: That's exactly what it's meant to recreate. That is our dry ice. It's solid carbon dioxide. Negative 109 degrees. You put it in water, it produces that steam which is just carbon dioxide coming off of it.
Host: So I don't want to put my hand in it?
Rachel: No. You absolutely do not.
Host: Okay, because I almost did and nobody told me to stop.
Rachel: Yep. Nope.
Host: So you guys are like let's use him as a crash test dummy.
Rachel: Exactly.
Host: We also have the Little Green Thumbs Camp too?
Rachel: Yes.
Host: And what does that involve?
Rachel: So that is our, I believe it's our preschool camp. Yes. So it's a really great way to incorporate science into the lives of the younger children. They are able to explore plants and how they work and function and things like that, things that they need. And it's simple enough to where they can get that sort of introduction that they really like to hopefully encourage them to pursue science later on.
Host: Okay, can you put the goggles on?
Rachel: Absolutely.
Host: They look pretty cool. So Pat, what else do we have over here before we go? What other concoctions are you doing here?
Pat: What we're going to try here is we're going to try a yeast reaction with some hydrogen peroxide.
Host: Okay.
Pat: We've got some very, very powerful hydrogen peroxide. Now, I'm going to pour this inside here. All right, hold it like that. I'm going to pour this inside here.
Host: Your lovely assistant will stand by. How far back should we stand, Doctor Awesome?
Pat: Right there's fine.
Host: Right there's fine?
Rachel: Yep.
Host: No problem.
Mike: Am I ok?
Host: No Mike, you need to lean in Mike. Yep.
Pat: We call this the elephant toothpaste experiment.
Host: Elephant toothpaste experiment? Ok.
Rachel: Mm-hmm.
Pat: So hopefully we'll get some elephant toothpaste happening here.
Host: Ok.
Pat: Pour that in there. Hopefully we'll see a reaction. Hopefully. Oh it's starting a little bit there.
Host: You shake it up a little bit? If not, maybe we can drink that. I mean, seems to be fine. Eventually, what will that do?
Pat: Eventually this is supposed to come out. It's supposed to spurt out because what's happening is the yeast is getting eaten right now.
Host: Oh, okay.
Pat: It's creating this reaction.
Host: Yeah, this seems to be getting together a little bit.
Pat: Yeah.
Host: Okay, again, thank you for coming. Sacramento.madscience.org. Check it out. Great camps for the kids this summer so that they're not just sitting around watching Nickelodeon. Not that that's bad, but I mean obviously that's not going to last for a couple months. Thank you both. Appreciate it.
Rachel: Absolutely.
Host: Whoa, look at you.
Pat: We also make light swords.
Host: Oh, look at that. That's the bonus. The lovely parting gift.
Rachel: Yep
Host: Okay Amy, let's send it over to you.
