Nanjemoy, MD — Middle schoolers got the chance to have fun in the great outdoors while learning at Nature Inventor’s Workshop,at the Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Education Center.
The day camp combined traditional camp fun like fishing, canoeing and making s’mores with less traditional educational activities like making kites out of trash bags, building a simple motor craft out of bamboo, rubber bands,pencils and washers, knotting a survival bracelet made of paracord and indulging in molecular gastronomy which resulted in bacon fat snow, fruit caviar and exploding bananas.
Finnegan McCauley, a Milton M. Somers Middle School seventh grader, tests out the kite he made during Nature Inventor’s Workshop held at the Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Education Center.
“Nature Inventor’s Workshop has students using things in nature to create
something,” said Jen Young, an environmental education assistant.
During free time campers are free to explore the surrounding forests and ponds. This unique experience that combines STEAM — Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math education with good old-fashioned outdoor fun in a hit with the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders who took part.
Ada Donohue, left, a seventh grader at Milton M. Somers Middle School, and Ava Wingate, a John Hanson Middle School sixth grader, sand bamboo as part of a project during Nature Inventor’s Workshop held at the Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Education Center.
“I really like nature,” said Ada Donohue, a seventh grader at Milton M. Somers Middle
School. “We all should learn how to help our environment and learn how to have fun
not just playing on a phone. Which is what I would be doing if I wasn’t here.”