MASM offers day camps during break

Mid-America Science Museum will offer its Winter Day Camps for the third year with topics relating to science, technology, engineering and mathematics during the holiday break for school districts.

Museum staff developed a new slate of topics and activities for the week of Christmas and the week of New Year’s Day. The camps will be led by the museum’s full-time educators on staff.

“One of the things we are always trying to do is do new STEM-related camps,” said Doug Herbert, Mid-America director of education. “This year, we have gone a little bit different than what we have done before, just trying to keep things fresh and new.”

The cost is $45 per day for members and $50 per day for non-members. Taxes are included.

Each day of camp will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parents can begin picking their children up at about 4:30 p.m. and all children should be picked up by 5 p.m. when the museum closes.

Registration for every day of camp will max out at about

20 students. Parents should call Audrey Pipher, education coordinator, at 501-767-3461, extension 115, or email audreyp@midamericamuseum.org for details.

“Every year it gets bigger and bigger,” Herbert said. “We are really hoping we completely fill them all up.”

The first week of camps will be offered for children ages

6-9 on Dec. 26-29. Herbert said different topics are chosen for each day as many families travel during the break and cannot commit to an entire week of activities.

“Gross Stuff” on Dec. 26 is the first of two “grossology” camps. Students will learn about the science of “slimy stuff, smelly stuff and generally icky stuff.”

A crime scene investigation-themed camp, “Whodunit?” on Dec. 27 will ask participants to solve mysteries with police procedures. They will learn about fingerprinting and how to gather clues.

An “Intro to Circuitry and Coding” camp on Dec. 28 will allow students to build their own circuit blocks and use an Arduino LilyPad to code and control them. Participants in “Misdirected Science” will learn the science behind stage magic.

The second week of camps on Jan. 2-5 will be offered for children ages 10-12. The “CSI Camp” on Jan. 2 will cover fingerprinting, clue gathering, police procedures and forensics.

Museum educators will lead “3-D Design and Printing” campers on Jan. 3 through the process of designing three-dimensional images and printing them. A second “Gross Stuff” camp will be offered on Jan. 4 and a “Circuitry and Coding” camp on Jan. 5 will close the two weeks.

Participating museum educators include Herbert, Josh Manley, Jared Pyron and Gary Tripp.