Day 3

On Tuesday we spent most of the morning on an "Alien Landscape Hike" which involved searching for life-sustaining habitat at the popular Vedauwoo location in the Medicine Bow National Forest.  This was followed by calculating the time required to travel to other star systems, and then learning how to design and build (paper) rockets.  In the evening we learned about how earth and the universe have changed over cosmic times, and how stars evolve during their long lifetimes.

Lives of stars

Cosmic timelines

Rocketry

Alien Landscape Hike

Camp Directors

Day 2

On Monday we started out with fun skits created by campers that suggested why we would leave Earth to colonize another planet, setting the stage for the camp theme "Journey to the Stars".  Our next activity focused on learning about the atoms and molecules that permeate space, and how to identify them. We learned how to measure distances using just a ruler, your arm, your fist, and your pinky.  Astronomers use "parallax", or the apparent change in the position of an object when the observer moves, to measure distances to the nearest stars.   Before lunch we discussed healthy eating habits, both on campus and during a long interstellar voyage.  We learned about optics and used that information to build hand-held telescopes that can be taken home.  We explored the different sizes in the Solar System and then re-created our own during a walk from one end of campus to the other.  The day was capped off with a tour of the night sky inside the UW planetarium and outside with 8" telescopes and binoculars.

Camper skit

Camper skit

Learning about parallax

Measuring distances using parallax

Spectrum lab

Identifying elements using hand-built spectroscopes

Measuring the focal length of lenses

UW Planetarium

The awesome night sky

Day 1

After the opening ceremonies on Sunday, the campers and staff first played some games to learn each other's names.  This was followed by a group discussion to establish the camp rules and then a GPS-based scavenger hunt to become familiar with the campus.  After their first meal at the Washakie Dining Center, the campers explored the different sizes in the universe, from atoms to the entire cosmos.  The theme of our camp is "Journey to the Stars", and the last activity for the campers on Day 1 was to work on skits that explain why we may eventually need to seek out another planet and colonize it. 

Learning camper personalities

 

Off to the scavenger hunt!

First meal at Washakie

Exploring the different sizes in the universe