From July 13 to 17, twenty-two middle school students from across Wyoming and northern Colorado got to attend the week-long Astro Camp event here at the University of Wyoming.
In 2020, the Windy Ridge Foundation made a $250,000 gift to support the Windy Ridge Foundation Astro Camp, which aims to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers while introducing the K-12 community to science programs offered through UW.
Campers, who are entering seventh or eighth grade this fall, were chosen based on demonstrated interest and academic potential in math, science, astronomy and space.
Students were treated to a variety of experiences including experiments, planetarium shows and dropping a watermelon off the roof of the Physical Sciences Building.
Alongside the twenty-two students were three current science teachers from Wyoming and five UW students who acted as camp counselors.
On the very first day of camp, students were asked to determine the height of the building by measuring the speed at which a tennis ball, wooden ball and a watermelon fell from the roof to the ground below.
“We’re using science to figure out the height of the building,” Danny Dale, a professor in the UW Department of Physics and Astronomy and an associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences said. “We’re taking an indirect measurement to measure the height of the building. Using a tape measure along the side of the building would be dangerous.”
The camp’s stated focus was on exoplanets, planets that have been located outside of our own solar system, orbiting another star.
Chloe DeFoort, who is going into the eighth grade at a middle school in Fort Collins, CO, said she has always been interested in space and liked seeing the constellations in UW’s Harry C. Vaughan Planetarium.
“It’s interesting to learn the universe is expanding in 4D rather than 3D, and learning about black holes,” DeFoort said.
DeFoort, as well as the other campers, also participated in an activity in which they learned how to grow food in boxes — a scenario that may become necessary if astronauts were to ever land on Mars.
Campers used LED lights and lined the boxes with aluminum foil to reflect light that will help the plants grow. They also created a water source by building tubes that could carry the water to the soil.
“On Friday, we’ll find out if it grows,” Brendon Walker, who will be a seventh grader at Mountain View High School, said. Walker also described the entirety of Astro Camp “as a fun thing to do”.
“I want the students to get a firsthand feel for how science is fun; how science and math can be used to explain what we observe from the universe; and an idea of how UW would be a great place for their college education,” Dale said.
