Kids learn about water and science at Everett Parks summer camp

Chance Loudenback, 10, stared into a microscope aboard a boat on Possession Sound.

“You gotta see!” he told a fellow student. “It’s cool! It looks like a bug.”

Loudenback was aboard the Phocoena, a research vessel for the Ocean Research College Academy, as part of a partnership with Everett Parks and Recreation.

Everett Parks offers two summer camps that focus on science. The first, Aquanauts Science Camp, is a week learning all about water and science. The second camp, Summer Science Camp on the Jetty, gives kids a chance to test out the scientific method.

Carolyn Henri, summer science camp director for Everett Parks, started the program to fill a niche in Snohomish County. At the time, kids who wanted to take a science-based summer camp had to go to Bellevue, Seattle or Bellingham. She wanted local students to have options closer to home. And she was tired of schlepping her own kids to Seattle.

“It just seemed ridiculous to me that we didn’t have that here,” Henri said.

The students at the camp are learning skills that can really expand on what they’re learning in school. The camps support the science standards that Washington has adopted. And the hands-on experience makes everything more fun and educational at the same time.

“We are providing field-based, all-hands-on opportunity for them to engage in science,” Henri said.

The students are learning skills that expand on what they learn in school. At the camp, students go through those steps in the field. They make detailed observations, ask good questions and be curious. During the Jetty science camp, teams of students designed a method to research and answer a scientific question. One group researched the difference between insect populations in different areas of the island. They set out traps and recorded the differences. Another group did a survey of the types of different trees on the island.

“They were doing their own research with their own hands and with their own peers,” Henri said. “We are there to make sure they don’t get stuck in the mud or eat something they shouldn’t, but they’re doing it.”

This was the third summer of the science program through the parks department and it’s been growing steadily.

Getting to go out on the ORCA boat this year was a definite highlight for the kids, Henri said.

In the past, the science camps have visited ORCA’s lab, but this year was the first time they were able to go out on the boat, which is new to the ORCA program. Ardi Kveven, executive director of ORCA, secured a grant to pay for the custom-built Phocoena.

On the boat, the younger students, ages 10-12, were paired with high-school-aged ORCA students.

One student, Dylan Scanes, showed the camp students how to lower a probe into the water.

“What will happen if you go deeper?” he asked.

The students talked for a moment.

“It will get colder and saltier,” they suggested.

“That’s a good hypothesis,” he said. “Let’s test it out.”

On the other side of the boat, students tested water temperature and salinity with a different instrument. Other students used a small net to collect plankton.

The partnership of older and younger students works well, Henri said.

“The impact of students teaching other students is exponential,” she said. “From a child’s perspective, having an older child teach you something makes it instantly cool.”

The older students do a great job of distilling the information for the younger students.

Henri said the response to the program has been fantastic. A lot of kids talked about coming back next year. Scholarships are available for kids who might not otherwise be able to attend. The program is growing steadily, as more people learn about it. Henri would like to add a third science camp, focusing of forestry, in the next couple years. The program is looking ahead and focusing on next generation science standards.

“We’re looking ahead to the next several decades,” Henri said. “What do our kids need to know in science to be leaders in the world?”

For next year

The quarterly guide for Everett Parks’ summer programs comes out in early May and registration opens shortly after that. For more information, go to https://signmeup.everettwa.gov or call the recreation office at 425-257-8300.