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There may be a few budding engineers, roboticists and forensic scientists among the area school-age population after recent summer camps at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus.

Twenty-five area students participated in the new discovery camp, an educational enrichment program offered by the universitys Office of Outreach and Continuing Education for the first time this summer to engage students academically during their break from school.

Students participated in two separate week-long sessions in July: one focused on engineering and design, and the other on exploring crime scene investigation.

The idea behind the new camps, said summer youth programs coordinator Lynne Roy, is to introduce younger students to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. The university already offers a STEM career exploration camp to high schools students, she said, and the new discovery camps will provide a similar opportunity for middle school students.

We want to get kids interested in STEM. Thats where the jobs are. We want them to discover new things to hopefully build a career path, said Roy.

School districts sometimes dont have the funds to provide STEM activities that a post-secondary institution can offer, she continued. Providing a setting for such educational opportunities lets students see the capabilities of a university campus.

The first session, offered to students in grades 7-9, featured computer-aided drafting and design, 3-D printers and building and programming with Lego Mindstorms robots.

In the second session, for grades 5-8, students studied fingerprinting, handwriting analysis, blood spatter patterns and chromatography.

The concept for a crime scene investigation unit originated from true crime and detective shows children might see on television.

We wanted to take something kids might have an interest in something they can relate to when they go home at night and turn the TV on and give them a taste of real life, Roy said.

The camps, taught by university instructors from various disciplines including mathematics, engineering and the sciences, attracted students from across Fayette County, as well as from Washington and Westmoreland counties, Roy said.

The sessions typically involved lecture-style instruction in the morning and hands-on activities in the afternoon, touching on a different topic each day, said Roy.

Maybe you didnt like today, but youll still have tomorrow. We wanted to offer different things each day to try to spark an interest, so when they get to their high school years, they can start thinking about what they want to do for a career, she said.

Paul Coltus, a research technologist at Penn State Fayette, said the camp utilized Wards Science kits for forensic lab activities during crime scene investigation lessons. Coltus administered a lesson on blood spatter analysis.

I hope they understand the science involved, the technology, and that its fun its not your typical classroom. Its participation based, so they take away more because they can remember what they did, said Coltus, who also organized a crime scene investigation lesson during the STEM career camp for high school students the week prior.

Hopefully, it will lead them down a path towards science. Its important that its fun and that theyre doing something they wouldnt normally do in the classroom, he said.

The 2017 Summer Youth Program at the university draws to a close this week. The college has offered educational summer camps and academic programs for 20 years. Roy said the various camps offered over six weeks this summer attracted 175-200 students.

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Area students explore new disciplines at university discovery camps - Uniontown Herald Standard