RHS STEM Summer Camp

Wrapping up STEM Summer Camp last week: In the mornings, students spent a lot of time looking at how magnets needed to be oriented in order to produce an electrical voltage. Most of the groups were able to get an LED to light up, but almost everyone ran into some amount of frustration with the design component. It was an excellent learning opportunity for the kids because they were able to get real-time feedback. They were able to experiment with seeing how the distance of a magnet, the orientation of the magnet, and even the type of magnet affected the desired output voltage.

In the afternoon, we worked in Ripon College's new chemistry laboratory. Dr. Bryan Nell taught us inorganic coordination chemistry, where we took pink cobalt chloride, ethylenediamine, hydrochloric acid, and hydrogen peroxide to produce a beautiful sparkling green crystal complex. Additionally, we got a tour of the new building, new lab spaces, some fun liquid nitrogen demonstrations, and redox reactions by lighting some gummy bears on fire with potassium chlorate.

Dr. Willoughby taught the students organic chemistry by having them mix vinegar and an alcohol to produce an oil that had a pleasant smell of bananas. On Friday, we took our banana oils and ran them through the new 9 tesla nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine to see exactly what we made. After that, he went on and took the students through the process of making aspirin by combining aniline and acetic anhydride with water to create acetanilide, which is an analogue of aspirin. Because the aniline was impure, the fire crystal that was created was impure, and thus we had to recrystallize our samples after purifying our solutions with activated charcoal. Through vacuum filtration, we ended up with a pure, shiny white crystal, analyzed by the melting point.

Day 5 of STEM Camp

In the morning, the students learned about what a magnet is and how electric currents are generated from them. Afterwards, the students took apart ceiling fans to see what made them work and get some basic ideas for the windmills they will start making tomorrow.

At Ripon College, Drs. Kristine Kovek-Lesh and Julia Manor explained the psychology of studying different behaviors. They showed the students how they study behaviors with rats, where the rats could only respond to a "yes" like stimulus. The students attempted to train the rats to hit a lever to get water. Dr. Manor and Dr. Kovek-Lesh explained how they study human feelings of emotion and how that relates to facial expressions in kids ages 8-14.

Day 4 the students started with a tour of the hydroelectric facility at the Neshkoro Millpond dam. It's been operating for over 80 years and provides power to around 100 homes. We discussed energy production, how turbines and generators differ and the impacts to the lake and river.

In the afternoon, we met with Dr. Hang Li at Ripon College to learn about how the viscosity of air plays a role in the force of lift for airplanes and helicopters. Then we returned to their Maker Space and helped unbox new 3D printer and learn more about how they work, how designs are communicated with the printers and what limitations they have.

The first week has been a lot of fun for Mr. Roost. They are a great group of students.

Day 3 of Camp started off with investigating solar panels further, how they respond when wired in series vs parallel and how the tilt of the panel in relation to the sun affects efficiency. Thank you to KEEP - Wisconsin's K-12 Energy Education Program for lending us these kits.

Genuine science happened when the "what if" questions started and they connected a ceiling fan to 15 solar panels to see if there was enough power to run it. Alas, no, but it led to great questions and inquiries. We also made use of KEEP's hand crank generator to compare the amount of physical work it takes to illuminate incandescent vs CFL vs LED lights.

We pulled the solar oven out (thank you again KEEP) one last time and NACHOS were on the menu!

In the afternoon, we visiting with Dr. Hang Li and Dr. Ying Lei at Ripon College who showed us their new Maker Space and introduced the students to Onshape by PTC (a cloud-based computer-aided design (CAD) and product data management platform). The students were able to design a number of 2-D and 3-D items which will be printed on campus.

Day 2 of this year's STEM Summer Camp. Students began the day by visiting Halbur's Heavenly Hill. It is an agrivoltaic farm where they combine sheep farming and large photovoltaic arrays. The sheep have a 45-day rotation through 27 paddocks located amongst acres of solar panels, which track the sun throughout the day.

In the afternoon, we again visited Ripon College and worked with Dr. Robin Forbes-Lorman to learn about anatomy and physiology. Students go to compare real human, sheep, and rat brains! They also learned how to use a "cryostat" to create very thin slices of rat brains to be mounted on microscope slides and researched. They were able to view some previously preserved specimens under the microscope. To keep with the theme, they were able to dissect sheep eyes. And finally, they tested their senses with a multitude of sensory tests and challenges, and got to explore a fully digital autopsy table made by Anatomage.

Day 1 of this year's STEM Summer Camp. Students began the day discussing energy use in our lives, the multitude of ways energy is produced in the US (fossil fuels and renewables), and for fun, we made brownies in a solar oven for the first time!

In the afternoon, the students visited Ripon College and met with Dr. Ben Grady to learn about botany, the anatomy of flowers, and the importance of pollinators.