Knoch K-STEAM camp gives students learning opportunities
JEFFERSON TWP — While outdoor temperatures shoot up into the 90s, a group of Knoch students are in the classroom continuing to explore their interests around science, technology and engineering.
The K-Steam camp, one of Knoch School District’s summer camp programs, is an opportunity for students to dive into STEAM: science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
Paul Hoffman, a Knoch High School robotics and wood shop teacher volunteering at the summer camp, is excited to see future students take an interest in STEAM’s fields of learning.
“It’s super cool, it’s good for them as students too. And you see their faces, and they come back and are interested in the robotics club, or the tech-ed and our STEAM classes we do, it’s good when I have these students in the sixth grade, and they continue to take these courses that I’m trying to teach, and they want to keep going,” Hoffman said.
The camp lasts for four weeks, with one session each week. The group of students participating, mostly middle schoolers, get to participate in various activities based around the fields that make up STEAM.
Hoffman said some of the topics and areas of study integrated in the camp’s four weeks include chemistry, biology, physics, design, robotics and graphic design.
Each week has 15 to 20 students signed up.
“We get a pretty big pull of younger kids that are interested in all of this hands-on stuff,” Hoffman said.
One of the benefits of the summer camp, Hoffman and multiple students said, is being able to enjoy topics that aren’t normally included in classes during the school year.
“Just being able to build,” Aidan Boltz, an incoming eight grader, said. “There’s stuff in school you wouldn’t work on we’re doing.”
Robotics has been an especially interesting topic to the Knoch students.
“I like the robotics. I like being able to bring this thing home and drive it around the house, and my dog chases after it, it’s really funny,” Brooklyn Johnston, an incoming seventh grader, said.
Hoffman said there is a lot of emphasis on hands-on learning at the K-STEAM camp. On Tuesday, June 24, the students at Knoch Intermediate Elementary School worked on assembling Makeblock mBot Rangers — a miniature robot kit the students put together, hook up to their phones through Bluetooth and drive around the room.
“We got them using these robotic kits, it’s really nice to be able to have them doing all of this. They’ve got light sensors, line sensors, all kinds of cool stuff, they can build them up into three different kits. They get to experiment with them,” Hoffman said. “It’s a bit advanced, it takes a minute.”
The students had to use what they’ve learned to help them assemble the robot kits properly so they could balance and turn on its wheels.
“Mine was going slow because it has to balance itself out, we have to figure that out,” Lucy Manzer, an incoming eighth grader, said as she assembled hers. “I like the building, even though you have to redo some stuff, you get the experience of putting it together.”
The students, while urged to keep trying if their robots didn’t work, showed continued curiosity throughout the process.
“It’s rewarding when you get to make it all work,” Savannah Weston, an incoming seventh grader, said.
The summer camp students also planned to take a field trip to Bayer in Clinton Township to learn more. Hoffman is optimistic about the impact of such experiences, in addition to what they are learning, hoping the students eventually will retain a higher-level knowledge of topics around STEAM, experimenting on their own, using their intelligence. The students are smart and like to explore and experiment on their own, he said.
“It’s comforting to see 20 kids want to come in here during the summer,” Hoffman said.
