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Durango girls learn elements of science at Maker Camp

Girls learn elements of science at Maker Camp

What do you get when you give a roomful of little girls a bunch of electric mixers? If you guessed cookies or cupcakes, you’d be wrong.

The electric mixers were in for a fate more fatal than simply mixing flour and sugar: The girls cracked open their cases to examine the mixers’ innards and turned the wires, circuitry and other parts into steampunkesque jewelry.

At the weeklong Girls Only DIY + Maker Camp, instructor Leisha Lawson encouraged participants to channel their inner inventors and learn that everyone – even kids – is a scientist.

The camp, held June 15-19, is one of several weeklong sessions scheduled through the end of July by Durango Maker Lab in partnership with IOIO SparkShop and Durango School District 9-R, which is providing space at Durango High School but is not supporting the program financially. Also partnering with the Maker Lab are Alpine Bank and Chevron, which will be donating money this summer to help fund internship opportunities.

Because District 9-R isn’t offering summer enrichment programs, the Maker Camps are a great way to stave off summer learning loss, said Julie Popp, public information officer for the school district.

Becoming a scientist

Back at the lab, Lawson was guiding nine girls through a cyborg mask-making project.

Two worktables held drying papier-mâché-covered balloons destined to become the foundation of the girls’ cyborg faces. On another table, the student-scientists were planning what their faces were going to look like and were busy modeling features such as cogs and gears – and even a moustache – out of clay.

Beside each girl was her science notebook, which Lawson helped explain.

“We’re just keeping a place where we can keep records,” she said. “I had them get started with 10 things they wanted me to know about them, and then 10 things they wanted to know about the world – how things work, who makes this, how well do these things go.”

The girls were then asked to draw a picture of what they thought a scientist looked like – first at the beginning of the week and then again at the end. During the course of the week, the girls’ perceptions of who a scientist is begins to change, Lawson said.

“They begin to self-identify,” she said, adding that at the beginning of the week, the pictures were of people wearing lab coats, but then “at the end of the week it’s, ‘Oh, that’s what a scientist looks like – it’s me.’”

Playtime in the lab

One of the student-scientists, Emmylou Willis, 8, who is going into fourth grade and is the daughter of Marci and Randy Willis of Durango, said she was a little nervous at the beginning of the week but ended up having a great time.

“I liked everything,” she said. “Probably the most favorite was probably taking apart the blender and taking apart the car because I get to see what I’ve never seen before, and I can see what’s inside a miniature car.”

And it would seem that science may well be her chosen field in the future.

“I want to be either a veterinarian, a nurse or a doctor,” she said.

Edie Erwin, 9, daughter of Jill and Dan Erwin of Durango, will also be in fourth grade this fall and is no stranger to summer science courses. She used to take them at the Powerhouse Science Center.

She said her favorite things about Girls Only DIY + Maker Camp were making name tags, decorating journals and making the cyborg mask, which she was still planning.

“I’m going to put a gear around one of the eyes,” she said.

And Edie’s future plans?

“I think math or just creating my own things,” she said.

Right now, said her mother, Jill Erwin, Edie is just enjoying making things and has even started her own dog-walking business this summer.

“Edie loves to create stuff,” Erwin said. “My favorite part of the camp is that it makes her think about different ways to use things.”

This week, young scientists – girls and boys ages 8 to 11 – have been taking things a little further with the “Science to the Rescue” course, tackling simple machines and germs (Monday), fire and explosions (Tuesday), circuitry and electricity (Wednesday), rocketry and escape tactics (Thursday) and, to finish off the week, chain reactions and taste (Friday).

katie@durangoherald.com

If you go

Summer Maker Camps will be held through the month of July.

Labcoats in the Kitchen, July 6-10, ages 6-8. Cost: $250.

Robotics Camp, July 6-10, ages 8-14. Cost: $250.

Chemistry: Cracking the Code!, July 13-17, ages 6-8. Cost: $250.

Animas River: Unplugged, July 20-24, ages 9-12. Cost: $275.

Maker Camp, July 20-24, ages 9-12. Cost: $250.

Techie Dragon Tracking, July 27-31, ages 11-15. Cost: $200.

For more information about the camps and to register, visit www.durangomaker.com.

Full and partial scholarships are available. For more information, email sarahmargoles@gmail.com.



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