BE TH EL PARK S CHO OL DIS TR IC T
ethel Park
F
CAMP INVENTION WAS EPIC
or four days in July, William Penn Elementary School was transformed
into Camp Invention, a place where 74 students in grades 1-6 had the
opportunity to reinforce their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Math) skills through a wide variety of inquiry-based, hands-on activities.
The Key Components of the program were immersion; create, test and recreate;
STEM; and 21st century skills, such as creative problem solving, creativity and
innovation and team building and collaboration.
The Bethel Park School District was pleased to host this program, which was
created by the National Inventors Hall of Fame, in partnership with the United
States Patent and Trademark Office and the Collegiate Inventors Competition, to
ensure that the activities the students participate in are inspired by the world’s
smartest inventors.
Students were grouped by age and each day they rotated through four areas:
CrickoBot, The Lab Where Pigs Fly and Anything is Possible, Epic Park and I Can
Invent: Maker Studio.
In CrickoBot, the students explored circuitry as they made and adopted a robotic
cricket that was fueled by a solar cell. They also created eight-legged, motorized
spider predators and employed the concepts of physics and motion to design
cricket-sized inventions.
In the Lab Where Pigs Fly and Anything Is Possible, students were able to see
themselves as scientists, programmers and biologists, testing more than a dozen
experiments. Some of the experiments included using a wrecking ball and mock
dynamite to demolish structures; coding a programmable robot; designing a device
to collect marine specimens; exploring geometry and angles as they bounce light;
and conducting chemistry experiments to make their own slime.
In Epic Park, the students pretended they were on a pristine island with a
rainforest, waterfalls, sandy desert stretches, steep cliffs and rolling hills. Students
sketched their best blueprints for tree houses, zip lines, water rides, treasure
seeking and high tech eco-gear and pitched their designs through a commercial
they made, to learn about the principles of entrepreneurship and physics.
In the I Can Invent: Maker Studio the students enjoyed authentic STEM
exploration as they applied reverse engineering to disassemble broken appliances
and redesign them into prototypes. They used their creativity, innovation, design
engineering and design thinking skills to engage in problem-based learning and
expressed their ideas through writing and sketching.