DiscoverE campers taking part in the BioMed Design Senior Grade 7-9 camp were talking about some common signs of a stroke and how it occurs in the body.
(Edmonton) As parents were dropping off their children on campus so the kids could kick off a week of engaging engineering and other fun activities, the University of Alberta campus was filling with laughter and sheer excitement. A group of Grade 4 to 6 students, gathering around their instructors, was guessing what their week at the Enviro Explorations camp might look like.
"I'm excited to learn about the environment," said one of the students. "We'll be learning how to reduce waste," said a fellow camper. "And I'll definitely make new friends," added a third young explorer.
Discovering the mysteries of engineering, science, and technology in a hands-on and friendly environment is at the heart of the 127 DiscoverE camps offered Grade 1 to 9 students throughout the summer.
This year, the U of A Faculty of Engineering DiscoverE summer camps, one of the largest STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) initiatives in the province, is welcoming more than 1,300 students in Edmonton alone. With programming in more than 60 remote communities throughout Alberta and the Northwest Territories, DiscoverE boasts the widest reach of such programming in Canada.
Unlike the young environmental explorers, Leeanne Clish's kids, an eight-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son, will be engaging with technology. Her daughter, a CompuGirls camper, will be engineering computer games. Her son, enrolled in a Robotics Camp, will spend the week designing, building, and programming robots.
"I want them to get more familiar with computers and technology-that's where we're headed in the future," said Clish.
DiscoverE is in its 24th year and the camp's 40 instructors, many of whom are engineering students, were just as eager as the young campers to complete their own personal summer goals.
Vivienne Li, a senior instructor with DiscoverE and a third-year civil engineering student, is taking a break from the technical side of engineering this summer. Instead, she's focusing on improving her interpersonal and communication skills, which will inevitably help her grow in the profession.
"If you have a client, teaching and explaining complex concepts is what you basically have to do," said Li, comparing her teaching responsibilities with an engineering job.
This summer, Li is teaching a Sleepover Extravaganza camp for girls, in which they spend two nights at the U of A Lister Centre student residence touring campus and completing hands-on engineering projects.
"The idea behind it is to get the girls excited about STEM fields in a stress-free environment," said Li.
According to David Asgar-deen, the DiscoverE operations co-ordinator, DiscoverE ranks at the top of all science and engineering camps in Alberta as it offers a variety of fun and engaging projects ranging from coding to space research, fossil fuels, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering.