With that, Eureka! has come to an end. It’s been a fun four weeks. It’s been an exhausting four weeks. It’s been a rewarding four weeks. Every day was challenging at times as I continually had to adapt lesson plans, respond to girls’ concerns, and just plain adjust to having an unpredictable class day. This past week was CSI week, a fan favorite every year I’ve been told, as a “crime” occurs at camp, and the girls have to put together clues to figure out who the perpetrators were. They perform handwriting analysis, model faces based off of eyewitness testimony, visit the crime scene, and decipher a code. Mal and I were in charge of the “Matter of Spatter” class, where the girls got to have fun splattering various liquids on the floor to determine how material, height, viscosity, etc. impacted the resulting stain. This was all done in order to decipher the spatter found at the crime scene, hot sauce. They also a technique used in Dexter through which string and trigonometry are used to determine the source of the spill. We then guided them to narrowing down their suspect list. Getting the girls to move from having fun spilling things everywhere to analysis was difficult; they’re very much still kids, which is great. One of the best parts of this camp was looking back to my middle school days to empathize with the girls and see where they were coming from in their actions, decisions, and conversations. A lot happens in middle school and early high school, from bullying to hormones to adjusting to new schools and new friends. If a girl was frustrating me, I had to take a step back to think about everything that was probably simmering underneath the surface. It was a good time to practice understanding people.
Eurekathon, the last day of camp celebration, was a bittersweet afternoon. It’s going to be nice to not have to go, go, go for 12 hours every day, but I’m really going to miss the girls. We gave our final presentation this weekend as well, and I had to consciously stop myself from asking the audience questions as I did for class. The most heartwarming part of the day was when one of the last girls to leave, one who doesn’t normally show much emotion, like me, started crying. It just goes to show how such a camp can impact someone in even a small way. At this time next week, I’ll be back on the east coast, and that’s when leaving will really kick in. It’s interesting to think about how a unique sum of various experiences make up every person. We’ll see!