On Saturday, Oct. 15, third and fourth graders from all Lake Central elementary schools gathered together for their common love of science.
“Students rotated between six stations during physics, biology and chemistry labs. They made slime, ooblek, sound/vibration labs, learned about skulls and skeletons and made balloon rockets. Each station was conducted, led and ran by three to four high schoolers in the club. After 20 minutes, the group of students rotated to the next lab station. We were hoping for 50 kids and ended up with 120 kids, and that put a cap on the number of kids allowed to attend,” Katelin Ellis, Science, said.
Lake Central’s Science Club members held Science Camp, a camp where students were able to experience science differently than in the classroom. Counselors explained how to do the labs and helped the mini scientists out.
“The group I was in was the slime group. The campers got to mix two chemicals, plus a color of their choice, and the combination made a polymer that they got to take home in the ziplock baggies at the end of the camp. Most of [the slime] worked like the polymer in the Flubber movie in the sense that it can bounce, stretch and is malleable. My job [as counselor] was to help make sure the campers put in the right amount of chemicals, so their slime wasn’t just a liquid or a crumbly solid. I worked alongside three other people, and our group effort made teaching the kids how to make it so much easier,” Lindsey Buchler (11) said.
The students were able to take home their experiments at every station they went to. Not only the students had fun, but the counselors did as well.
“What I enjoyed the most about working with them was seeing how much fun they were having. I had a lot of fun working with the group, and the little kids as well. I just didn’t like the cleaning up, but then again who does,” Damion Muniz (10) said.
