By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
Science lessons for elementary school students during summer break are a little different than during the regular academic year, often with a little more fun added. The scientific facts, though, remain the same.
The youngsters attending Tuesday morning's outdoor free event hosted by the Fort Hays State University College of Education's Science and Mathematics Education Institute were focused on how rockets and catapults work. They also helped launch the institute's scientific weather balloon.
Although the youngest children were accompanied by adults, each of the attendees was on their own when it came to designing, cutting out and decorating their rockets made of paper and paper straws. They also got to construct a catapult and launch candy from it toward a target.
The rockets were propelled either by stomping on air-filled two-liter plastic soda bottles — a NASA-approved design — or by the builder's own breath.
The summer day camp will be offered again Wednesday and Thursday mornings with other science topics and hands-on experiments.
The teachers at each learning module are also students, albeit a little older and a little more experienced.
"We have a National Science Foundation scholarship grant program that's designed to recruit potential and train future science and math teachers for this area," said Paul Adams, dean of the FHSU College of Education.
The Noyce Summer Scholars are in their freshman and sophomore years in college. They get the opportunity to work with area science and math teachers who run the summer camps.
"To recruit, we get the students in who aren't quite decided what all they're going to teach and have them work at our summer camp programs which go the whole month. One of those days we have them do community outreach and teach scientific activities.
"They interact with the kids, get the experience of planning, and see the excitement as you do science and math activities."
Each activity is easily replicated by the student using basic items found in most households.
Except for high-altitude ballooning.
The Science and Mathematics Institute has been flying high-altitude balloons for about 11 years.
"We fill one up with helium, it's gonna launch, and we can do all sorts of experiments. We like to call ourselves the Space-X of Kansas because we provide the launch platform and the schools do it," Adams said.
Last winter, the institute designed a program for science teachers who in turn worked with their own students to experiment with snack-chip bags, which will inflate as they increase in altitude.
Another workshop was geared for high school students who designed a package that would open and close as it goes up in altitude to collect bacteria at different point in the altitude.
"The platform allows you to do a lot," Adams said.
Tuesday's launch carried a standard FHSU payload package to measure pressure, temperature and radiation. It also has a camera to capture the view from the balloon.
The launch, aided by many eager hands, also was designed to check the unit's tracking equipment.
"We don't just send it up and say, 'That was good.' We have to be able to get it back," Admas said.
Based on the weather and wind conditions, Adams and his FHSU assistants estimated this balloon would generally follow along Interstate 70 and land somewhere near Dorrance, a distance of about 40 miles east of Hays.
Wednesday and Thursday's come-and-go workshops run from 9 to 10:30 a.m. outside Tomanek Hall south of Forsyth Library and will feature clouds, tornadoes, cannons, tower building, sundials, and blast rockets propelled by vinegar and baking soda.
"The nice thing is the kids can go home and keep experimenting, which is what we want to have happen," Adams said.
"Develop that curiosity and get that interest in STEM and science going early so they can continue and maybe hopefully come here and be a major at Fort Hays State University in our STEM College."