I know this is kind of a last-minute update (sorry for the late notice everyone) but I actually ended up getting the opportunity to intern for a summer camp held at my school for Elementary Students. There are a variety of kids, ranging quite widely in age and experience and also linguistic capabilities. As the science teacher, I have to plan lessons and teach the children for the next 4 weeks, which I’m very excited and honored for.

Today was the first day of summer camp! Honestly I wasn’t too nervous (thankfully) about teaching the first lesson today. As an icebreaker/introductory activity for the kids to get to know each other and also familiarize with the overall basic science principles, the lesson plan for today was a collaborative event with ACS Chemistry Club members.

Inspired by the theme of our first ACS SCI-COMP, the lesson plan focused on the importance of lab safety rule posters. We first introduced our club members, who were volunteers (Rina and Benjamin) from our club. Then, we began teaching the kids about the basic lab safety rules, such as no running in the lab, wafting, never making direct contact with lab equipment, and tying long hair.

Here are some photos of the posters that the children drew:

The overall atmosphere seemed to get a big tiring and down as the students began to finish their drawings, so we immediately moved onto a lab safety rule jeopardy. Students divided into their own teams of 4 and 3 students — Team Orange and Team Elephant.

Thankfully enough, the students were really enthusiastic about the jeopardy — probably because of the prize, which was receiving 2 talents per person (we’re using talents to award children, which they can use to buy items and snacks, like the Parable of Talents). Interestingly enough, the two teams were tied almost until the end, though Team Orange was leading by 300 points. We tried to motivate Team Elephant for the last 100 point-worth question by boosting it to be worth 1000 points, and surprisingly, Team Elephant won.

For tomorrow, the lesson plan will be focused on teaching the students about the Scientific Method and how experiments are conducted.

I’m honestly not nervous about the summer camp itself, mainly because I’m become more familiar with the students, and I’ve also already known some of them from babysitting or teaching them at the Learning Support. Looking forward to tomorrow!

– Joanna Kim, June 14th, 2022, 2:58AM KST –