Three-day camp features STEM fun for area students
FAIRMONT, MN — More than 40 area elementary students explored the world of plants, pollinators, and robotics at Martin County KnowHow!’s summer STEM camp, held Aug. 3-5 at the Southern Minnesota Educational Campus in Fairmont.
Students entering grades 2 through 6 this fall enjoyed a variety of projects over the three-day camp, including “Field Trip in a Box” activities from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, as well as teaming up to assemble VEX robots — which the older students demonstrated in a tournament at camp’s end.
The camp began with the “Plants as Partners” activity, in which students learned how different plants can play a role in removing carbon from the atmosphere, reduce the heat island effect in urban areas, and serve as cover crops to reduce erosion in farm fields. Students also got to plant three different kinds of seeds.
The next morning students learned about pollinators such as bees, flies, bats, hummingbirds, and butterflies, and the types of flowers each prefers, planting seeds of some pollinator favorites. The “sweet” fun continued as students learned how honey is made and got to see real honeycomb and taste it, too.
In the afternoons, students were introduced to VEX Robotics kits, building small technological marvels. With the GO kits for younger students, they were able to create a bunny, supercar, adaptation claw, and inclined plane with car, plus several original projects.
The older students worked in groups to build a remote controlled robot to compete in a game of engineering challenges between the groups. Students first worked together to follow detailed technical instructions to construct a base robot, and then were given time to innovate on the base design to better complete the challenges. Students then brought their unique robot to a competition where their designs’ strengths and weaknesses could be compared.
Through these robotics projects and challenges, students learned basic engineering principles, on-the-fly problem solving, creativity, and teamwork. All of their collaboration, persistence in the face of challenges, and ability to make adjustments as they gained experience paid off with the excitement of putting their finished robots to the test in competition. Their pride in their work was also evident as they welcomed parents & guardians on the final day of STEM camp to see what they’d been up to… and even let some younger kids and siblings drive their robots for a little bit.
Over the course of the camp, students also painted camp t-shirts using their own arm- and hand-prints, and sponge painted to resemble a tree — a learning tree, of course!
Thank you to everyone who made this event possible!
Our STEM camp would not have been possible without these generous community organizations and individuals:
Fairmont Community Education & Recreation for publicity, registration, facilities, and equipment… and so much more
Char Kahler, Deb Mosloski, and Ida Rohman for assisting the camp teachers
Kendra Dumitrache and the crew at Chartwell’s Food Service for lunches each day
Fairmont Early Risers Kiwanis for snacks
Martin County Youth Foundation for a grant that paid for part of the camp
Martin County Area Foundation for a 2019 grant for the robotics kits
Camp teachers Cindy Viesselman, Leah Rode-Mulder, Sam Viesselman, and Sarah Jagodzinske Rohman
And last but not least, our thanks to all of the students and their parents, grandparents, guardians, and mentors for their interest in and support of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in our community!
Some quotes from students & parents about
Martin County KnowHow!’s 2021 Summer STEM Camp!
“I love solving problems!”
“I want to do more of this at home!”
“Thank you! They enjoyed STEM!”
“Can I skip lunch to work on my robot?”
“This is like super Legos, so fun!”
“Thank you! (He) had so much fun!”
“I love when opportunities like this are available to our communities — it’s a much bigger world. Fun to see so many kids involved. I appreciate the opportunity for my kids!”
“Thank you, (he) had a ton of fun!”
“I can’t wait to do more STEM when I get older!”