Friday, September 28, 2012

Nerd Camp!


After a year of nerdy dreams and endless planning, the Peace Corps Volunteers put on a Science Camp.  Here’s a little shout out to all my friends and family that donated to our project; thank you yet again for your contribution!  The camp took place the first week of September and lasted for five days in the city of Koudougou, the third largest city in Burkina Faso!

Throughout the week we did experiments demonstrating different scientific concepts and discussed important health issues like malaria and HIV/AIDS.  My counterpart and I did a chemistry session involving the production of liquid soap.  This paired up perfectly with a hygiene discussion and it’s a great activity kids can do back in their villages.  They also dissected toads, played with electrical circuits, observed plants under microscopes and a variety of fun experiments with pressure.  Throughout the week there was also time for them to break up into small groups to create their own science projects, which were presented in a Science Fair at the end of the week.  It was incredible to see how proud they were of their projects and how they were able to apply basic science to their daily lives.

Of course there were also camp songs, team chants and many a silly game.  It was moving to see the students from different regions of Burkina get to know each other.  Many of them had never had the opportunity to travel much outside of their own region.  It was also interesting to see the interaction between kids from the city and kids from villages.  They do not realize the differences, positive and negative, of even their daily lives.

Anywho, camp was fun, camp was great, yeah camp!  Click on the link below to see a slideshow of what we did!  As they always say, a photo is worth 1000 words!


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