PRINCE ALBERT — Friday was a professional development (PD) day in Prince Albert schools, so the Prince Albert Science Centre offered their first ever STEAMcamp as a new alternative.
Sandra Williams chair of the Science Centre said the target for the camp was children ages eight to 12.
"It is offered on days where teachers are involved in professional development and parents are wondering, ‘What can I do with my child?’ So we came up with the idea of offering some STEAMcamps on professional development days for this reason,” Williams explained.
They are planning to offer STEAMcamps at the Science Centre during school holidays including the February break and Easter break.
The camps are or science-based and have a 20-student limit. For the first camp there were 12 children in attendance.
“It is phenomenal,” Williams said. “We are super excited. We took a huge chance, a huge leap of faith, but we had 12 families who chose to support us today in STEAMcamp and they are having a great time.”
During the morning, the campers did some Lego challenges, made bouncy balls and conducted an experiment. In the afternoon they did Lego disaster challenges and finished the day with technology.
To get the word out for this STEAMcamp they used Facebook and their website.
Williams said they were trying to cover as many bases as possible by taking advantage of the Lego already at the Science Centre.
“We are taking advantage of our Lego because everyone likes Lego,” Williams said.
The next STEAMcamp is Feb. 18 to 21. Like Friday’s, it will run from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.
"We're not doing Family Day because Family Day should be Family Day,” Williams said.
“That will be pre-registration and we have let the schools in Prince Albert know that,” she added. Williams said it was an opportunity to have more education on a day when children are not in school.
"Learning happens every day, whether we know it or not, so at the Prince Albert Science Centre we're trying to bring hands-on science to Prince Albert outside of a school setting,” she said. “We like to use the phrase edutainment because it's educational in an entertaining way. It's structured education in an entertaining way.”
The Science Centre also brought in paid facilitators to lead the group.
Williams encouraged everyone to look for more information at princealbertsciencecentre.ca or on their Facebook page.
“(There are) a lot of great opportunities in Prince Albert for families,” she said. “There's sports, there's recreation, there's art, there's dance. As a Prince Albert Science Centre, we're trying to add to that. We're trying to make sure that we're adding to the already existing great things happening in our city.”
