The LodeStar Astronomy Center, funded through a grant from UNM, is offering a number of week-long children's summer camps to immerse them into the field of astronomy.
The center, which is located inside the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, is the only planetarium in the state open to community events and its administrators are taking advantage of that by placing a strong emphasis on child learning, said Aileen O'Catherine, LodeStar's outreach manager.
"We want kids to get excited about astronomy because all other areas of science are made possible through its basic principles," O'Catherine said. The planetarium's Astronomy Odyssey Summer Children's Camps, accommodate children from as young as four years old to students who have completed the ninth grade.
"These camps immerse them in the field and provide them rare opportunities to learn hands on about the mysteries of our world," O'Catherine said.
The camps, which are taught by local teachers who are contracted through UNM for the weekly summer sessions and are aided by local high school and UNM interns, have annually drawn more than 100 participants since its inception in 1999.
O'Catherine said the camps are self-sustaining with student's tuition fees covering the cost of activities, including access to the center's motion simulator and research-grade observatory and visits to the center's exhibits as well as field trips to UNM's Physics Lab and the Meteorite Museum.
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"We've met with a great deal of success in the four years we've been running these camps if success can be measured by students who continually return to the program," O'Catherine said. "We feel that we are offering an invaluable service during the summer months which are unfortunately spent on the couch by too many children these days. When are campers finish their time here and are noticeably happy and interested in science, we know we are successful."
Kathy Jones, a local elementary school teacher who teaches at the LodeStar Astronomy Center during the summer, said she and the other camp teachers try to foster and maintain interest for the children in areas that are relevant to their futures.
"Every week-long camp provides an intensive learning experience that is very focused and more in-depth than many of the subjects covered during the regular school year," Jones said.
"Science can be intimidating, so we strive to erase that fear factor while stressing team work in their group assignments in an attempt to show them that it is an area of education that they can master while learning about the world."
