The crime scene was a mess. A knocked over trash can spilled dirt onto the floor. A broken clock lay crooked and made time stand still. Footprints created a wavy pattern in a white ash substance.
And detectives were set to work at the scene, each of them in grades six through eight.
“I guess there was a fire. It was all molded,” a student from Butler K-8 School said as he prepared a plaster mold for a shoe print casting. “Everything was all black.”
No real crime was committed, but the students teamed up and used crime scene investigation methods to find out who made the mess in the corner of a Cabrillo High School science room.
Chair of Cal State Long Beach’s Department of Science Education Dr. Laura Henriques watched with a smile from ear to ear as she supervised the fifth year of “See us Succeed,” a youth science camp offered to underprivileged children. Children who participate in the camp come from homeless shelters, low-income families or inadequate housing.
“See us Succeed,” held at the Bethune Transitional Center for Homeless Students, branched off of the existing CSULB “Young Scientist’s Camp,” also led by Henriques.
Henriques started the camp because she knew that many children in downtown Long Beach would never be able to attend the camp on campus, which is a $300 program that lasts for two weeks.
“I just thought to myself, there’s kids who will never get to do this,” Henriques said.
Henriques offers the science camp for free so the children have the opportunity to have fun in a safe environment. Rhonda Harmis, head of the Bethune Center, makes sure the kids are cared for while at the camp.
“While they are here, we give everything that you would give those in need,” she said.
Oftentimes the kids arrive to camp without breakfast, camp coordinator and CSULB science education graduate Jill Grace said. However, lunch, snacks and clothing are all provided for them by organizations like the Free Lunch Program.
The group of 120 kids, which has doubled in size since last year, was split into six sections based on age. Each age group had three supervisors, including one teacher and two teaching assistants.
One of the camp’s main goals is to prepare teachers for a classroom environment by giving them experience with kids and lesson planning, Henriques said.
“It’s humbling and eye opening,” CSULB science education graduate and Los Angeles Unified School District seventh grade teacher Sarah Aguiñaga said. “It has helped me in many facets as a mentor.”
The three youngest groups, kindergarten through third grade, stayed at the Bethune Center while the older groups, third through eighth grade, went next door to Cabrillo High School. Each group explored a different topic, like “Cool Chemistry,” “CSI,” “It’s not Magic, it’s Science!” “Awesome Astronomers” and “Engineering and the Human Body.”
The different categories included their own activities, which all built upon scientific subjects and theories. For example, the third graders in “Cool Chemistry” focused on density and the properties of different states of matter.
Words like “solvent” and “molecule collisions” were tossed around during the activities, which included going through each state of matter by standing close together to represent a solid, or running around and high-fiving each other to represent the high-action movement of a gas.
“It gives them thinking skills and problem solving skills that they wouldn’t have before,” Henriques said.
After the kids finish the science lessons at the Bethune Center and Cabrillo High School, they then go to the Long Beach Boys and Girls Club from 12:45 to 5 p.m., where they have a snack and participate in more science activities.
See us Succeed is funded by the Miller Foundation and Verizon.
The camp runs every weekday from 8 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. and ends on Friday.