ExploreHope

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Welcome back to the ExploreHope blog! I am so excited to share about my first summer as a teacher for ExploreHope. My name is Annie Bruebach and I am going into my senior year as an Elementary Education major. I have loved seeing our campers become so passionate about science through hands-on activities and experiential learning.

This week I had the privilege of teaching one of my favorite camps, Cool Critters and Crawlies. All of our campers became bug experts as we learned about bumblebees, spiders, insects, butterflies, and lightning bugs. The students even had the opportunity to work with one of the Hope professors to create their own pollinator devices!

One of my favorite activities this week was ending camp each day with bug catching. Each student had their own “bug house” that they filled with soil and all the bugs they caught during the week. The campers loved digging in the dirt and finding rolly-pollies, ants, spiders, and even a couple earwigs. At the end of the week the students got to take their bug houses home so they can continue to bug hunt!

In the classroom, the campers participated in a variety of activities and each day they were able to take home a bug-related craft. If you asked any of the campers, I’m sure they would say that their favorite activity was making lightning bugs from plastic bottles!

Make your own lightning bug at home with an empty plastic water bottle, a pipe cleaner, some yellow and black construction paper, a couple glow sticks, and some tape.

• First, tape the yellow construction paper around the water bottle.
• For wings, cut out the black construction and tape two wings to the body of the lightning bug.
• Then, twist a pipe cleaner around the cap to create the lightning bug’s antennae.
• Finally, place the glow sticks into the bottle. Turn off the lights to get the full effect of your glowing bugs!

By the end of the week, all of our campers had become bug experts and it was a blast to see them become so passionate about all the cool critters and crawlies that live around us!

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Hi everyone, my name is Rylee Snellenberger and I am a sophomore studying biomechanical engineering. I was able to lead the Applied Python camp for Week 5 of camp! I was super excited to see what these kids would create, and I am happy to say they did not disappoint! The main point of Applied Python was to learn how to control different circuits with code, mainly Scratch and Python, by connecting their circuits to their Raspberry Pi. A Raspberry Pi is a brand of computer geared for hobbyists, researchers and education.

This camp was very personal – there were only four campers! Yet, they were able to create some pretty cool circuits. One camper made a quick reaction game with two buttons and an LED. Another was able to create a controller for a robot arm! My favorite part of Applied Python was seeing the campers work together to create some pretty sweet circuits and code. It was amazing to see campers want to try each other’s creations. 

If you would like to start coding yourself all you need is a computer or laptop! To learn how to code, the Raspberry Pi website has some Python coding tutorials that will guide you through creating your own code using the Python application. After going through a tutorial feel free to customize it to you! Create questions that your friends have to answer about you! 

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Happy summer everyone! I am Ana Gamboa-Andrade, I recently graduated from Hope in November and am teaching at the ExploreHope Science Camps this summer. I majored in Elementary Education in the Integrated Sciences so I love seeing campers immersed in hands-on science education. 

This week, I had the joy of leading the Prehistoric Planet camp. Our little paleontologists had so much fun in this camp exploring any and everything about dinosaurs and fossils. They got to take part in some fossil digging and assembly, creating teeth and claw molds, exploring descendants of dinosaurs, and excavating their own dinosaur eggs!

This was a Kindergarten through 2nd grade camp, so along with the week being fun, it was also cute as heck! One of our favorite activities was getting to create our own tar pit slime. We pre-portioned out some ingredients for a gooey slime and added a few drops of black paint to give it that tar feel. Once they finished kneading it, they got to play with some small dinosaur toys and get them stuck in their tar.

If you’d like to share some of the Prehistoric Planet fun at home, you can try making some yummy pudding fossils with a few simple ingredients.

Materials:

• Vanilla pudding
• Chocolate pudding 
• Crushed up graham crackers
• Crushed up Oreos
• Dinosaur gummies or sprinkles
• Blue food dye
• Clear dessert cups
• Spoons

Before assembling your pudding fossils, you’ll want to dye about a third of your vanilla pudding blue to represent a lake bed. Once your materials are prepared, walk your little paleontologist through this yummy model of fossil formation. 

Imagine 200 million years ago, some dinosaurs were walking in a riverbed. Scoop a layer of blue pudding in the bottom of the cup to represent the river bed and put the dino sprinkles on top.

All of a sudden the dinos were buried by a landslide, a flood, or a volcanic eruption! Quickly cover the dinos with cookie crumbs.

Over time more sediments accumulated on top of the river bed. Some of the sediments were big, and some were small. Some of the layers were thick, and some were thin. Use the chocolate and vanilla pudding along with both kinds of crumbs to make layers, burying your dinos deeper in the Earth. Let your paleontologist create their own story.

Over millions of years, the pressure on top of the material surrounding your dinosaurs turned the mud and dirt into rock, and the dinosaurs into fossils. Enjoy! 

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages.

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Hi everyone! My name is Maddie Suhrheinrich and I am an upcoming senior at Hope College. I am currently studying elementary special education and am loving the opportunity to practice my classroom skills in Explore Hope Summer Camps!

During the past two weeks, I have led Step-Up’s Water Exploration Camp. Step Up is a program through Hope College that teams up with local middle school students to provide mentors and academic support. We explored the ideas of water quality in local areas, such as a stream in Zeeland and Lake Macatawa.

Campers learned about different factors of water quality. After collecting samples from the locations, they used hands-on water testing kits to test them. Once campers mastered their skills, small groups were able to create an investigation of their own! Each group posed a research question, collected and analyzed data, and produced a research poster they were able to share on the final day of camp. It was so exciting to see how their skills grew over the two weeks and how their creativity shined in their posters.

My favorite part of this camp was being able to visit different sites with the students to collect data. When at the sites, students would get into the water areas to collect samples. It was so fun to see all of their different personalities shine, as some were very eager to jump in the water and others were participating in a more behind-the-scenes matter. We had some good laughs, especially when one student’s shoes floated down the stream unexpectedly! I also loved being able to have time on the bus to sit and get to spend time with the kids in a non-academic setting. I felt a lot of our relationships were formed on these trips!

Another one of my favorite parts was watching each group of students present their research posters. It was so rewarding to see their hard work presented in a large way. Each group had a different poster where their personalities stuck out. I also loved watching the students who were not presenting support their fellow campers. And of course, it was fun to end with celebratory ice cream on their last day.

For anyone who is interested in completing an activity relating to water quality exploration, I have the solution for you! One of the main factors we tested was the pH of the water samples. To complete this at home with everyday household items, all you need is red cabbage and water! Blend 3-4 large leaves of red cabbage in a blender filled halfway with water. Afterward, strain the juice to make sure all of the chunks get out! Once you have this solution, separate it into different cups and add any substance of your choice to test the pH. Acids will turn red/pink and bases will turn blue/green! 

The past two weeks at Step-Up were such a rewarding experience. I was able to make valuable connections with my campers and assistant teachers and create so many exciting memories along the way. I am so grateful for the experience and the lessons I have learned to take with me in my future classroom!

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages. Scholarships are available for middle and high school students interested in environmental and engineering topics. Contact Lise at zinck@hope.edu for more information, including questions about transportation options.

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Happy summer, everyone! My name is Annie Arthurs and I am a recent graduate of Hope College and an ExploreHope teacher this summer! Science camps create so many wonderful hands-on experiences for campers and allow children the opportunity to ask questions and make discoveries in a safe, fun, and vibrant environment. 

I recently had the privilege of leading our Science of Star Wars camp. The week was filled with laughter, excitement, and learning! Throughout our four-day camp we talked about mixtures and solutions, Newton’s laws of motion, light energy, and so much more!

Although the entire week was a blast, my absolute favorite part was watching our young padawans create their own carbonite using what we learned about heterogeneous mixtures! They even got to stick Han Solo (a green army man) in the carbonite! So cool!!

If you want to experience a taste of Star Wars camp at home, you can try making your own R2D2 escape pod using a few household items. 

The materials you will need are 

• An egg (or two!)
• Markers
• Aluminum foil
• Plastic straws
• Paper
• Coffee filters 
• Tape
• String 

The raw egg will be your own personal R2D2! Feel free to decorate the egg (gently!) with markers to make it look like a real droid. 

Then, using the household materials listed above and anything else you think might be helpful, create your own pod to protect R2D2 from a tall drop. 

Once your pod has been created, test it! You can drop it from various heights and modify your pod to best protect your pod! 

This activity helps us to understand Newton’s laws of motion and of course, the Force! The biggest force in question is gravity when it comes to dropping our pods. We know our pods are going to go down; however, we can use what we know about force, mass, and acceleration to modify our pods and protect our drone!

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages. We hope to see you soon!

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Hello and welcome to my ExploreHope Blog Takeover! My name is Kimmie Drake and I will be a sophomore here at Hope. I plan on majoring in Elementary Education with a focus in Integrated Science. I have always had a passion for science and was so excited that I received this opportunity to be a part of the team that leads camps throughout the summer. 

I had an amazing time leading the camp called Super Science Sampler for K-2nd graders. For those who cannot decide, why not try it all? With this camp there is a new theme everyday which gives campers a chance to experience five different camps throughout a week. For example, campers made bug catchers and learned about the parts of an insect, visited animals at the animal museum, learned about habitats, watched liquid nitrogen and dry ice experiments, and learned about states of matter. There was never a dull moment. 

One of my favorite memories of this camp was creating volcanic eruptions for our Prehistoric theme day. I can guarantee that these campers, if allowed, would have spent all day watching the volcanoes erupt. Lucky campers – this activity is super-easy to do at home!

All you need is vinegar, baking soda, dish soap, and washable paint or food coloring. Even if you do not have a volcano mold you could make one using playdough shaped around a plastic cup. Combine baking soda, food coloring and dish soap in a container – then add vinegar and watch the eruption! More instructions and tips for this simple and fun activity can be found here.

Another one of my favorite memories was going outside with the campers and hunting for bugs for our Creepy Crawlies theme day. Each one of the campers got their own bug catcher filled with dirt in it and used a spoon to dig around under bushes in search of bugs! They all wanted to find the most bugs as possible, especially roly-polies. They also collected grass, twigs and leaves to add to their bug catcher which they took home. 

Making these bug catchers at home is very easy! Find a plastic container and a spoon. Next, poke some holes into the lid or use Saran wrap and a rubber band for the cover. Then off to explore and find as many bugs as you can! Pop them in the bug catcher and count how many different types of bugs you found.

Super Science Sampler made Week 2 very enjoyable as I watched these campers discover the world around them! 

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages. Scholarships are available for middle and high school students interested in environmental and engineering topics. Contact Lise at zinck@hope.edu for more information, including questions about transportation options.

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Hi, my name is Gina Polito and I was lucky enough to lead the Harry Potter camp along with Haley Galloway. We had so much fun with our wizards as we are both huge fans of Harry Potter as well. I loved being able to geek out over Harry Potter with these smart and creative campers! I had so many fun and interesting conversations this week. I even ended up learning a lot from my campers.

This week in camp, we had our wizards sorted into houses, made wands, saw owls from the Outdoor Discovery Center, played Quidditch, mixed potions, and made our own magical mandrakes. 

My favorite part of the week was the last day when we made our own Polyjuice Potion to drink while playing Harry Potter trivia. HUGE congratulations to Ravenclaw for winning the house cup and receiving the most house points! Another big congrats to Slytherin who won our Quidditch tournament!     

Did you know you can make your own magical potions at home? Fill a glass vial (or mason jar) with vegetable oil and add an eye of newt (beads), unicorn hair (fishing line), dragon’s blood ( red food dye), and mermaid scales (sequins).

This magical potion lets you test an object’s density! When you drop a new item in your potion, see which items float to the top and which sink to the bottom. The more dense objects will sink while the less dense will rise to the top! Now that’s the kind of magic ExploreHope Summer Science Camps are all about!

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages. Scholarships are available for middle and high school students interested in environmental and engineering topics. Contact Lise at zinck@hope.edu for more information, including questions about transportation options.

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Hello everyone! My name is Sean Hoey, and I am going into my fifth year here at Hope College. I am studying Secondary Education with a focus in Integrated Science (a fancy way of saying that I will be allowed to teach biology, chemistry, Earth science, and physics) with a minor in Biology Education. 

I am also involved in the baseball team here at Hope as a pitcher, help lead the HS youth group at Fellowship Reformed Church, and coach the Zeeland Red Bulls Special Olympics basketball team. This summer is my first time teaching at Summer Science camps and I am beyond excited to be here. 

One thing I am most excited about is creating relationships with all the campers and watching them learn and grow in just one week! If this first week was any indication as to how the rest of the summer will go, I am really looking forward to coming back to work each day. 

I led Crazy Chemistry and for campers in 6th-8th grades. This camp was five days of chemistry fun. Our first day, we focused on the concepts of atoms, the periodic table, and how we can identify them in the real world. The second day we learned about solution mixtures. We did a couple cool experiments relating to density and got to make giant elephant toothpaste! For our third day, we discussed the states of matter. The campers got to watch one of the professors here at Hope perform some awesome demonstrations with dry ice and liquid nitrogen (seeing their faces light up during the demos was incredible☺). 

On the fourth day our topic was acids and bases. We observed how colors can change depending on how acidic or basic a substance is, and maybe the most exciting moment of the week was building and launching acid/base rockets. The final day was full of research. We got to tour some of the research laboratories here to see what some students and professors are working on currently, and we got to do some research of our own by chemically testing some water from around campus. 

The week was filled with fun, laughs, building relationships, and exciting chemistry experiments, especially the liquid nitrogen and dry ice demonstrations. By using these different compounds we got to witness:

• A banana hammer in a nail after it had been frozen solid,
• An acid/base column that rapidly changed colors, and
• A racquetball explode like a piece of glass – a favorite with all the campers!

Another great memory was setting off our acid and base rockets. We built small rockets out of film canisters. Inside, we put Alka-Seltzer tablets and some water, setting off a chemical reaction shooting the rockets almost 30 feet in the air! The campers had a blast seeing their rockets take off in the plaza area outside. 

Making acid-base rockets at home is easy! All you have to do is put some water at the bottom of a film canister, drop in a single Alka-Seltzer tablet, cap it, shake, place your rocket on the ground with the capped side facing the ground, and then watch it fly. Make sure not to shake it too long in order to avoid it launching in your hand. You can even add in a small amount of paint to make a cool pattern on the ground. The science behind this is that the Alka-Seltzer and water create a chemical reaction releasing carbon dioxide gas. This builds up pressure and the rocket takes off!

 

This past week with Crazy Chemistry was an awesome experience. I made so many memories that I will cherish forever. I can’t wait for many more to come the rest of the summer and in the future in my teaching career.

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages. Scholarships are available for middle and high school students interested in environmental and engineering topics. Contact Lise at zinck@hope.edu for more information, including questions about transportation options.

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Hello everyone, welcome to my ExploreHope Blog Takeover! I’m John Kim, and I am one of the leaders for the Explore Hope camps this year. I will be a sophomore majoring in Science Secondary Education. Due to COVID-19, I wasn’t able to go back home (Thailand) this year but through this opportunity, I am blessed to share my love for science with our wonderful campers!

Did you know? Because video editing and filming are becoming a trend these past years, multimedia has become a recognized tool for education. For several of my projects and exams, I have created podcasts and videos to express my creativity!

I was the lead instructor for the Movie Making 2.0 camp this year. The big overview of this camp was to create a 5-8 minute mini-movie with 12 middle school campers in 4 days. Of course, throughout the making of the film, we all got to learn about scripts, storyboards, and different types of camera shots. With the use of iMovie and the camera provided by the Hope Communication Department, we planned, filmed, and edited our videos!

My favorite part of this camp was when the campers got into their groups and discussed their ideas for their mini-movie. I could see all the campers getting engaged and fired up for their film day! You can definitely see their passion when they bring their props from home!  As an instructor who has seen all the processes of these camper’s movies, I was excited for them. The finale of the camp was presented through a showcase of the completed trailers and films which the parents could join through Zoom.  

Make your own movie at home!

One of the activities that we did on the first day of the movie-making camp was creating a storyboard. This is an easy activity that you could do to organize your own movie! You could simply print out a storyboard template and start your story by drawing and writing down each scene. This would eventually lead to a story that could be visualized which helps when filming the desired movie scenes. 

This activity could be more interesting if you tell your parent/guardian or siblings to fill out the first board. It is going to be your task to continue the story by using your creative minds! Are you ready to create your own storyboard?

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages. Scholarships are available for middle and high school students interested in environmental and engineering topics. Contact Lise at zinck@hope.edu for more information, including questions about transportation options.

This summer we’re hearing from our amazing camp staff. Our Hope College students do the heavy lifting of planning, prepping, and teaching our hands-on camps all summer long! Each week, 2-3 student staff members will recap a camp they’ve led and share tips on how to keep the fun going at home!

Hi all, and welcome back to the ExploreHope summer camp blog! My name is Isabelle Bertolone, and I am a senior at Hope College. I am going into my final year of nursing school at Hope, and I have such a heart for nursing and all the wonderful things you can do in this profession.

I was STOKED to find out that I would be leading the Nursing and Health Professionals Summer camp through ExploreHope. There couldn’t have been a more perfect camp for me! And now, I get to share some of the best parts of the camp with you all!

The Nursing and Health Professionals camp provides an introduction to the world of nursing and other careers in health, highlighting all the opportunities there are for nurses as well as some of their primary responsibilities. Throughout the course of this four day camp, our 9-12th grade campers had the chance to take a full set of vital signs, perform a brain function assessment, put on and take off a full set of personal protective equipment (PPE), hear from nurses from a variety of different specialties, and more! Campers found pulse and respiratory rates, and can even tell you what the normal range is.

My personal favorite part of camp was watching the campers don (put on) and doff (take off) their PPE as they raced to see who could do it the fastest! Some other highlights include

• Our aids race with a wheelchair, crutches, and a walker.
• Swabbing different surfaces around campus and seeing what bacteria grow.
• Watching the campers work through scenarios where they were the nurses, and I got to play their patient.

But the PPE race stands out as my favorite 🙂

The Nursing and Health Professions camp was a great way to kick off the summer back at ExploreHope in person, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer brings! -Isabelle

Visit ExploreHope Summer Camps for more info. Although many of our camps are full, there are still openings for all ages. Scholarships are available for middle and high school students interested in environmental and engineering topics. Contact Lise at zinck@hope.edu for more information, including questions about transportation options.