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Space Exploration and Engineering with the Calvert/Quest Summer Camp

This summer, Calvert continued our partnership with Hamilton Elementary/Middle School by hosting the Calvert/Quest MGP Summer Camp. This Middle Grades Partnership (MGP) program forges connections between public and private school communities, and we. This free, four-week program allowed Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Grade students to learn about engineering, space travel and exploration, and city planning. The students also enjoyed two field trips together.
Each week of the program allowed for a different theme throughout the month of July. In the first week, students focused on engineering processes. Activities included rocket design, creating sound machines, Newton’s three laws of motion, and more. Engineering processes continued in the second week, allowing students to enhance their projects from the previous week. In week three, the theme switched to space travel and exploration. This theme allowed students to explore the history of space travel and the latest innovations in spacecraft design. The students applied astronomy, physics, and math concepts while learning about the solar system and space. Activities for the week included building a moon rover and designing space shuttles and space stations. The final week’s theme was city planning, architecture, and transportation. The four-week program concluded with students investigating the challenges faced by cities around the world, including Baltimore, in the areas of food production, food quality, and transportation. The students explored “farm to table” food, farming practices, and the effectiveness of citywide transportation systems. Final activities included working in groups to create a totally new city using urban design planning. Together, the groups mapped out bus routes, train stations, and bike lanes and eventually created a 3-D model of their city plan. After their model was created, the groups used basic advertising and marketing strategies to “sell” their city plan. 
 
In addition to each week’s themed activities, students had a variety of afternoon elective activities including chess, crafts, robotics, music, and more. The group’s first field trip was to NASA’s Goddard Flight Center in Greenbelt during Space Week, and the second trip was to Bowlero in Timonium. The second trip included other MGP partner schools.  
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Calvert School is a coed independent lower and middle school.

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