This summer, the Outreach Committee collaborated with the Claver House to participate in a summer camp for children who live within the historic The Ville neighborhood located in northeast St. Louis. For historical context, the outreach committee volunteered with the Claver House in similar community-focused activities and events prior to the pandemic.
This year, the summer camp had students across first to sixth grades. The committee showcased and provided hands-on activities for an array of physical phenomena grouped by the following themes:
- Angular Momentum (June 29th)
- The Physics of Waves (July 6th)
- Thermal Physics (July 13th)
- Light & Optics (July 20th).
Some of the demos discussed and shown were: precession with a bicycle wheel, torque, gyroscopic effects, boomerangs & frisbees, transverse and longitudinal waves, resonance with crystal water glasses, crushing cans with air pressure, fire tornados, how to make your own cloud, reflection, refraction, and how to make a Galileoscope.
These activities would not have been possible without the unwavering commitment and support of the following members of the committee, the overwhelming majority of whom were completely new to outreach.
- Aline (Ali) Arra, Liam Brodie, Takuya Okawa, and Pazit Rabinowitz led and oversaw the volunteer efforts for the Angular Momentum and The Physics of Waves demos.
- Audrey Coleman, Chen-Hao (Paul) Lin, Shixing (Simon) Wang, and Fang Yu led and supervised the activities for the Thermal Physics and Light & Optics demos.
Of special note, the committee is also grateful to Sean Ehle for his invaluable feedback and expertise in procuring and preparing many of the demos showcased in the camp.
Thank you to the Outreach Committee for making our participation in the camp a success as communicated not only by the camp's organizers, but also by the curiosity and glee that you all captivated and inspired!
A selection of images that further document the committee's activities from those events can be examined in this Google Photo Album. We thank Liam Brodie, Paul Lin, and Simon Wang for their photography.
