Evening Activities In addition to the daytime classes offered for school groups, Astrocamp boasts fun and exciting programs for students at night. Astrocamp instructors lead the activities and you, the teachers, have the chance to select what evening program your students will be doing. Please click the links below to learn more about the evening activities. Five-day groups have the opportunity to to do additional activities click on the Five-Day Groups link to learn more. A carnival atmosphere prevails in this series of games where groups compete. Some events add the element of challenging the students’ understanding of physics and astronomy. Kids can burn off their energy with events like Dizzy Bat: they put their head on a baseball bat and spin around it a few times – then try to make a basketball shot. Two activities that incorporate physics and astronomy are Pictionary, the guess-the-word game, and the Traverse Wall Challenge in which students work their way along a traverse climbing wall to retrieve parts of a sentence which must eventually be unscrambled to produce descriptions of constellations.
Free Swim Enjoy open swim time in our heated indoor pool for an evening program. Our 144,000 gallon pool is shaped in the form of a “T”, with each end of the “T” providing areas as shallow as 3 and 1/2 feet, the middle of the “T” reaching depths of 10 feet. (Portions of the pool may be closed off for small groups.) Watched over by our certified lifeguards, kids are free to splash about with the provided kickboards, balls, and other aquatic toys.
Interstellar Auction Groups plan and bid for extra-solar planets and the materials necessary to colonize them in an exciting auction. It’s an active and thought-provoking activity requiring group cooperation and compromise. A terrible cosmic tragedy has befallen the Earth; we must therefore find another home. Groups study the many offerings for a new planetary home. Should they opt for Hadarii Major, an earth-like planet with an average temperature of 60 but at a distance of 290 light years, or are they better off bidding for Upsilon Andromedae C, a blue gas giant with clear skies and a temperature of 170 but only 44 light years away? They vie, auction style, for each planet, out-bidding each other until the planet is declared, “SOLD!” Some teams get into free-spirited bidding and try to make things costly for other teams. Settling on a planetary home is just the beginning. They have to bid in turn for choice selections from as many as 9 categories: housing, transportation, food source, energy source, water source, communication, sewage disposal, waste disposal, and entertainment. At the end, we see how each team did. The challenge of Interstellar Auction is to make choices about how to duplicate life on earth elsewhere where conditions may be less hospitable. Choices have to be made for every aspect of life and all the choices should add up to a reasonable solution. If the home planet itself is not so inviting, you can compensate for this elsewhere. Instead of living on the surface, you may elect to bid for an orbiting platform or live in denial of the harsh realities by going into suspended animation. The presentation at the end can be livened up with posters and skits to draw upon the varied talents of the group.
Messier Madness This indoor/outdoor activity combines a group clue hunt with discovering and presenting information about deep space objects. Messier Madness begins with an introduction to Messier objects, favorite targets of amateur astronomers. Messier objects consist of a hundred or so non-star-like objects catalogued by 17th century comet-hunter Charles Messier who compiled a list of things easily confused with comets. This list includes galaxies, stellar nebulas, planetary nebulas, open clusters, globular clusters, and a supernova remnant. Students discover the nature of these objects as the instructor projects images of them. Next, it’s onto the clue hunt. Teams attempt to decipher clues which often challenge students to figure out scientific fact as they lead them from location to location throughout camp. Finally, as their last clue leads the groups back to the point of origin, they are given a puzzle they need to put to assemble in order to see an image of a particular Messier object. If there is time, the instructor can conclude by projecting additional images of Messier objects. Messier Madness is an active, outdoor alternative which lets kids traverse the camp this way and that with flashlights in hand.
Mission to Mars Groups cooperate to design a mission to the Red Planet. Decide on mission goals, equipment to use, and target sites. At the end, groups give presentations while a panel of “NASA Scientists” (teachers and chaperones) decide on awards. Students get to experience some of the steps that go into planning a space mission. What is the goal of your mission? What things do you want to investigate? Where on Mars do you want to place your spacecraft? What kind of apparatus would you need to do your investigation? Having discussed and made their choices, the groups make presentations of their mission proposals, explaining their mission goals, their choices in supporting that goal and justifications for their choices. Their presentations can be accompanied by colorful posters advocating their missions.
School Night Utilize this choice when you have your own program. We have plenty of resources available: the conference center and the theater-like Star Gallery with their large screen VCR and DVD projectors, the gym with its facilities for physical activities. Props, costumes, and other equipment are available as well. This is an activity usually facilitated by the school with the assistance from the Program Coordinator and Assistant Program Coordinator.
Astro Jeopardy Test your knowledge in this Astrocamp version of everybody’s favorite game show! This activity is designed to be a cumulative experience for your five-day program. AstroJeopardy can be patterned as close as you would like to the TV game show with elements like Double Jeopardy, Final Jeopardy, and the Daily Double. Large numbers of students can be accommodated by doing a rotation among team numbers: one student at a time comes “up to bat.” There are twelve categories to choose from, all of which review the content of various classes: • Roy G. Biv: Lights & Lasers
• 4th Rock from the Sun: EVM, Cosmic Lander
• The Big Light: Solar
• Planets R Us: Planets, Cosmic Lander, Micrometeorites
• When Nature Calls: Day Hike
• Lunar Lessons: Telescopes
• The Universe: Telescopes, Planets, Cosmic Lander
• I Love Floaters: Microgravity
• Up, Up and Away: Atmosphere & Gases
• Motion: Building Rockets
• Superstars: Telescopes
• Sweet Home Astrocamp: Fun facts about Astrocamp.
Campfire/Wrap Up This activity gives students an opportunity to showcase what they have learned during the week. Students plan and perform skits highlighting the week’s activities. Indoor and outdoor facilities permit a campfire regardless of the weather. We can provide some props and costumes, even marshmallows! This is an activity usually facilitated by the school with the assistance from the Program Coordinator and Assistant Program Coordinator.
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