A summer of science in Levittown district

Summer has been full of space experiments, team-building water activities and bubble-making machines thanks to Camp Invention — a new program for students entering third, fourth or fifth grade in the Levittown School District. 

The district takes in students from north Wantagh and Seaford. Camp Invention was held at Wisdom Lane Middle School for the first time this year. 

At the camp, students said that they had a blast launching rockets and participating in hands-on activities that emphasized STEAM — science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics — concepts. Teachers from across the district and students from MacArthur and Division Avenue high schools, as well as Salk and Wisdom Lane middle schools, volunteered to be counselors. 

“It has been a fantastic experience for all of our campers, volunteers and teachers,” said Siobhan Schneider, a fourth-grade teacher at Abby Lane Elementary School. “All of the challenges the campers are faced with are creative and innovative and allows kids to use their higher level thinking skills to solve problems as well as create new things.”

Throughout the day, Schneider said, students rotated from five different stations that each had STEAM-related activity. The students were able to design their own inventions and business plans during Ducktape Billionaire, set up a space station in Mission Space Makers, build a high-tech bubble-blaster and explore the inside workings of different technology machines.

“All of the challenges are academic-based relating to those subjects,” Schneider said. “So the campers are learning while they are having tons of fun.”