 Math,
Science, and Engineering Summer Camp at UNF
For gifted and high achieving students
entering 7th, 8th and 9th grade in Northeast
Florida public schools. The summer camp was offered in 2005 by the
University of North Florida and
sponsored
by the UNF Foundation, the Florida Department of Education, and the Governor’s Summer Camp Program.
The camp is a collaboration among the Departments of Mathematics and
Statistics, Chemistry, Engineering, and Curriculum and Instruction.
About the camp | Camp Flyer 7th
| Camp Flyer 8-9th
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Camp Pictures |
Camp Report
Camp
Report
Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Summer
Camp 2005 at UNF
 The
University of North Florida (UNF) was able to provide a first time service to
forty-five gifted/high achieving students in the three surrounding counties as
a result of the Governor’s Summer Program and the UNF Board Initiative Grant
awarded to Drs. Cavanaugh and Al-Rubaee. Gifted coordinators from Clay,
Duval, and St. Johns counties, and UNF gifted specialist Dr. Weber met with
faculty from UNF to plan and provide hands-on activities in mathematics and
lab-based experiences in chemistry and engineering for a selected group of
entering 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. The camp
started June 20th and ended July 1st. Students engaged
in creative activities started 9:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M. Dr. Hochwald, the
chair of mathematics and statistics department at UNF, provided these gifted
students with daily challenging and exciting mathematics projects.
A sample of these
projects contains the following activities;
-
Can the figure on the right be
drawn without
lifting your pencil from the paper and by going
over every line exactly one time?
-
Three students are
seated in three chairs, one behind the other, each facing the same
direction. The three students are all excellent logicians, and each is
aware that the others are excellent logicians. The student in the back
can see the heads of the two in front of him, the student in the middle
can see only the head of the student in front of her, and the student in
the front can see no heads. I HAVE THREE WHITE AND TWO RED HATS. THE
STUDENTS KNOW THIS. They close their eyes and I place a hat on each
student's head. Then they open their eyes. I ask the student in the back
if he knows the color of his hat; he says, "No." I now ask the student in
the middle if she knows the color of her hat; she says, "No." When I now
ask the student in front the same question, she says, "Yes, I know for
sure that my hat is white." How could the student in the front reach this
correct conclusion?
-
Find out what weather
forecasters in Jacksonville mean when they say there is a 30% chance of
rain and find out how they make their prediction.
Dr. Nix, the director of the engineering division at UNF, together with Drs.
Schonning, Cox, and Giuma provided the gifted students with daily challenging
and exciting engineering projects. In these hands-on activities, students were
challenged as groups and individuals to develop, create, and model several
engineering projects. A sample of these projects contains the following
activities;
- Water Treatment Project –Students will
develop a device to treat “polluted” water. Each team will receive a
gallon of water to which various (non-toxic) “pollutants” have been added
causing the water to be turbid, and a variety of materials from which to
construct the device. The challenge is to design and build a device to
improve the clarity of the gallon of water within a fixed amount of time.
(Adapted from a contest held at the 2005 ASCE SE Regional Student
Conference.)
John Pechonick and
Melissa Bush were the leading instructors in development and delivery of the
chemistry labs and computer activities. A sample of these projects contains
the following activities;
- Molarity/Dilutions/Beer's
Law
Students will learn that
molarity is a measure of the moles of solute per liter of solution. They will
study the property of absorbance measured in spectrophotometers as it relates
to changes in concentration. They will learn how to construct a Beer's Law
plot and apply that to the analysis of unknown solutions. One of the unknown
solutions may consist of an unknown "blood" sample to determine the
concentration of a particular substance. This technique is a valuable tool
used in all of chemistry including a forensic chemist who might be solving a
crime. (This lab would be colorful)
Students will learn what
polymers are and their contribution to society. Student teams will be part of
a research team working for "Boing Bouncy Ball Co" who is trying to perfect
their formulation for the bounciest ball. The goals for each team is to
manipulate the basic recipe for bouncy balls to make them bouncier. This is a
really fun and competitive activity that the kids love.
These diversified and
exciting activities challenged and enhanced the curiosity and interest of
these gifted students in the areas of mathematics, engineering, and
chemistry. Although faculty and staff were impressed by what the students
already knew, they were specifically impressed by what students were able to
accomplish in the two-week camp. Several faculties indicated that students
were able to understand and master content and lessons traditionally taught to
freshmen college-level students. The success of the program is best described
by the question many students asked: “Can we come back next year?”
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