Discoveries abound at Kirkwood for Kids camp

At the Kirkwood for Kids camp in Washington, kids from kindergarten to eighth grade took part in various activities where they learned about science, made art projects and much more.

The camp was held at the Kirkwood Washington County Regional Center on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of last week. Campers were split into four groups by age and took part in several stations throughout the week.

At the Fitness Frenzy station on Friday, officers from the Washington Police Department guided first- and second-graders through fitness activities like passing a beach ball, playing with a parachute and running an obstacle course.

Kirkwood invited the officers to run the station to allow the kids to meet them in a fun environment, the center’s director Tera Pickens said.

“Both Kirkwood and the police department felt that this would be a wonderful way for law enforcement officers to connect with community youth in a fun and welcoming environment,” she said.

The station was run by Lt. Shamus Altenhofen and Officer Seth Adam of the Washington Police Department, who guided the campers through the different activities.

“It’s good for us to come here and be able to play with the kids, and the kids get to play with us,” Altenhofen said. “And deal with law enforcement in a different way than you would normally see.”

During the parachute activity, about 10 kids stretched a multicolored parachute out on the lawn outside the Kirkwood center, waving the parachute to make ripples, creating a pocket of air underneath and sitting inside.

At the obstacle course, the campers scrambled across a balance beam, over hula hoops, and through a tunnel to reach the end, as the officers timed their runs.

Maxon Meyers, 7, helped assemble the obstacle course, laying hula hoops out on the grass that the campers had to jump through one by one.

“My favorite part so far today has been building this obstacle course,” he said.

In a classroom at the Kirkwood center, the third- through fifth-grade students were learning about computer coding, using a program through code.org that allowed them to make a character draw a shape by dragging different commands into a chain.

Jackson Dugger, 10, of Washington said he liked learning how coding makes computers work. Because of his interest in video games, he said he wants to be a video game designer when he grows up.

“I like coding, just making stuff do stuff,” he said. “That’s part of the reason why I want to be a video game designer.”

At a different station for third- through fifth-graders called Weird Science, campers conducted experiments like making slime, growing crystals and extracting DNA from a strawberry.

To get the strawberry DNA, the group smashed strawberries in a plastic bag, added soap and Epsom salts, then strained out the juice and added alcohol to the mix. A white, cloudy substance appeared on the top, which contained DNA strands.

“That was fun but this look is disgusting, it looks like someone just pulled out guts,” Etta Bell, 10, said when looking at the results of the experiment.

Instead of rotating through stations, sixth- through eighth-grade students took one class over the three days of the camp. In the welding shop at the Kirkwood center, campers were able to make metal works of art with Welding Metal Creations.

The students made lawn ornaments, napkin holders out of horseshoes and spelled out “USA” or their names with scrap metal.

Grace Voss, a Washington High School junior who was a counselor at the camp, said she got involved when she saw it among volunteer opportunities at the school and signed up to get silver cord hours.

She said her experience with being a camp counselor made her realize she wants to work with kids in the future.

“I just like hearing their conversations that they have and seeing what’s going on in everyone’s lives,” she said.