Camp features hands-on approach to science

They covered their ears as a gas-filled balloon exploded into a bright orange flame, giggled as they watched a singalong film about titanium and other elements, and scrambled to the front of the room to watch beakers of vinegar turn red, blue and purple.

About 40 students from around the Eastside, mostly fifth- and sixth-graders, plunged into science this week through Bellevue Community College's Summer Science Camp for Kids.

BCC faculty members used hands-on projects — from bottle rockets to stargazer charts — to spark the kids' interest in astronomy, oceanography, biology and other fields. With Friday's focus on chemistry, students made ornaments out of borax and would later shoot bottle rockets into the air and eat ice cream chilled by liquid nitrogen.

The goal of the program: get young students — especially girls and students of color — interested in science before they enter middle school.

"That's an age where they have the ability to understand basic concepts of science, but it's often a time where young girls ... in particular lose interest in science," said Jim Ellinger, the camp's director and a biology professor at the college. "Boys think it's their domain. And a lot of times young girls get turned off."

For Lindsey VanderMolen, a fifth-grader at Somerset Elementary School, projects such as making ornaments to learn about crystallization opened up a new interest.

"I wasn't sure about it at first," she said about the science camp. "Now that I'm into it, I like it."

The program, now in its seventh year, drew students from more than 15 schools.

For Keith Wong, coming to the summer classroom was a chance to learn more about how the science he's already interested in works. The sixth-grader at Chinook Middle School said he hopes to be a software engineer.

The camp was more fun than the computer games he plays during the summer, he said.

"Yeah, way better," he said.

Anne Kim: 206-464-2591 or akim@seattletimes.com