What are the current goals of your project?

For the next five weeks I have two more camps that I will be leading, both being space camps. The first one will be a 1/2-day space camp for kindergarten through second grade, and the second space camp will be a repeat of the first one that I did. I will be spending some time before both of those camps planning and preparing the camps. I will also be planning and prepping a space career workshop, which is a full day event talking about different space careers you can go into. After both of my camps I will be preparing and planning three 45-minute programs about lunar exploration that I will be leading called to the moon and back. During my time not spent on camps, I will continue to do research for the Putnam regarding Antarctica.

What accomplishments has your project made so far?

As of now, I have done many different things at the Putnam Museum and Science Center. My first two weeks were spent planning and preparing for my upcoming camps that I would lead. I also helped out with tasks around the museum that needed to be done, as I finished my work quite quickly. Additionally, I planned and prepared activities for “Sally’s Day,” a day celebrating the first American woman in space. The first camp I led was a full day space camp, with children ranging from third grade through sixth grade. Overall, this was a very successful camp, and kids seemed to really enjoy it. On the fourth day we watched a movie that was about the Orion mission to Mars, and because my research is surrounding this mission and longer space exploration missions, I was able to talk to them in more detail about the research going into this project. They all seemed very excited and thought my research sounded really cool (like sci-fi).

My second week of leading camp, I was assigned to a dino camp. Although it is not my area of expertise, I had a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed all the activities I had planned. Additionally, I have started studying what NASA is doing in Antarctica so that the Putnam can update some things in their space exhibit. As of now I plan on specifically looking into what Antarctica can tell us about Mars, as a manned mission to Mars is in the near future. I would also like to get some more information on Orion, Artemis, and Gateway as well.