Special to the Enquirer  

“Seas the Day” was the motto for Barkley Bridge Elementary’s annual Summer STEAM Camp, which provided fun learning opportunities. Students collaborated, using the engineering design process, to create an ocean banana boat prototype from recycled materials. They manually pool raced their devices, motored by Sphero ball robots, and then coded their robots to race their banana boats. They also participated in a taste test each day, with many students discovering they love seaweed, salmon, shrimp chips, broiled shrimp and more. Students created beautiful pieces of shell artwork while learning about chemical reactions through baggie paint poppers – created by combining water, vinegar, paint powder and baking soda into a baggie, giving it a vigorous shake and placing it on a canvas for the bag to pop paint – resulting in beautifully-textured pieces to which students added shell artwork from their own imaginations. Friction learning through water slides was a blast and a crowd favorite as students raced down a 100-foot tarp. Tie-dye science name towels made for a fun takeaway. Jamie Dutton, Kim Jared and Sarah Williams hosted the camp, along with several school library volunteers.