More than two-dozen teachers from across the Southeast recently attended a camp held at the University of Alabama to learn new ways of expanding their students’ interest in science. The camp was held June 25-29 and offered different hands on labs and classroom sessions.

“The camp is run by ASM International Education Foundation and is funded by the U.S. Air Force,” Martin Bakker, associate professor of chemistry, said. “This is one of 39 such camps that ASM runs country-wide, plus another dozen around the world.”

The Air Force not only helped fund the camp, but they also came to talk to the teachers personally about how science and mathematics assist them in their daily missions.

“Maxwell Air Force base came and talked about their experiences — how science impacts things like chemical and biological weapons, defending against IUDs and battle field meteorology,” Bakker said. Teachers from Tuscaloosa, Greensboro, Birmingham, Mobile, Tuskegee, Mississippi and Georgia attended the camp, and master’s teachers from Ohio directed the camp, said Bakker.

The camp covers things such as metals, plastics, ceramics and composites.

“The philosophy is the use of hands on experiments and demonstrations using common materials to illustrate fundamental principles,” Bakker said.

The teachers participated in things such as using a rolling mill to flatten pennies and touring the Hunt Oil refinery to understand how asphalt is made.

“My favorite part of the camp was the hands on activities we did each day,” Wendy Bramlett, a teacher at Tuscaloosa Magnet Middle School, said. “I firmly believe that hands on learning is the key to helping students understand and retain concepts.”

This workshop was a favorite of Bramlett’s. She believed it was very beneficial, not only to the teachers who attended the camp, but also to the students that will learn the information in their classrooms.

“I would definitely attend this workshop again and would encourage any science teacher to attend,” Bramlett said. She also said many of the teachers who participated this year are looking forward to returning to the camp next summer.

“Out of this year’s camp participants, I was the only one from a purely mathematical background,” Juliet Pruitt, a teacher at Tuscaloosa Academy, said. “I came to the camp looking for better ways to link aspects of our curriculum in math with the one in science.” Pruitt praised Bakker for being so enthusiastic and fun to work with throughout the camp. “As always, the University of Alabama offers a wonderful site and support for camps like this,” she said. Bakker, who had a huge roll in the camp, brought his daughter Zoe along to help out for the week. Not only did she do a lot of behind the scenes work, but she was also able to participate in some of the labs. “I took AP Chemistry last year, and I feel like doing some of these labs would have been a big help in understanding complicated concepts,” Zoe Bakker said. “I kept wishing that we had done these labs last year, and I envy these teachers’ students that have the recourse to these awesome labs.”