The Science Camp has started in 2012 with the theme of “Building Korean Networking for Next Generation”. It was led by Dr. Taeok Bae, the 40th Chicagoland Chapter President, in collaboration with the Hanul Family Alliance and with support from the General Consulate of Korea Chicago office. Participating students have experienced hands-on experiments that are not easily covered in school. It has been one of the best practice programs for leveraging knowledge from scientists to local young students. The Science Camp has offered a variety of experiments covering fields of chemistry, biology, materials science, engineering, robotics, and computer science. Through the camp, the students had opportunities to learn the scientific ways of thinking of and executing their plans.
In this year of 2020, unlike previous years, we were unable to offer an in-person Science Camp due to the COVID-19 pandemic but decided to still hold the Science Camp online. Online instruction was not easy to show demonstrations and teach experiments. It took especially a long time to prepare the camp because we had to make sure all the science experiment items were delivered to each household on time without any accidents. Despite the challenges of limited methods to instruct the students, it was a great opportunity for us to recruit more students to join the camp than the previous years. The Science Camp was held on Dec. 21st, which was right after when the winter break started. A wide range of grades (4th-10th) students participated with their siblings, which was encouraging. The camp was instructed by Seungwon Chung (AbbVie Inc.), Kyoo-Chul Park (Northwestern University), and Seok Hoon Hong (Illinois Institute of Technology). They put a lot of effort to explain and deliver the key scientific and engineering principles and messages to the students in easy-to-understand ways. There were three sessions with the following topics:
1) Chemistry – from Molecular Properties and Modeling to Drug Discovery
2) Biology – About Bacteria and Their Growth
3) Material Science – Kitchen Science, Bioinspired Functional Nanomaterials and Surfaces
The chemistry session used a molecular modeling kit to explain how the chemical bonding and making of a molecule works, how a molecular reaction occurs, how to use drawing tools, and how to use computer modeling in the drug discovery. The biology session explained the bacteria and their usage. Using agar plates, students practiced how to grow bacteria sampled from many different places in the house. Finally, the material sciences session demonstrated different functional surfaces, the properties of natural and artificial surfaces, and the science behind the surface functions.
Many students and parents shared positive feedback about this camp. Mostly, they enjoyed the camp by learning science at home and are looking forward to joining the next camp. This event could play an important role in promoting KSEA and its STEM-related activities to local communities. Potentially, it may also help in recruiting more KSEA members in the future.
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