Sunburst Summer Camp Continues To Encourage Students’ Creativity

By: Ryan Bray

Topics: Orleans news , Nauset Regional School District , Nauset Regional Middle School

Sarah Thornington helps cut the ribbon during a ceremony celebrating a new mural outside Nauset Regional Middle School July 27. The mural was designed and created by students in this year’s Sunburst STEAM Camp. RYAN BRAY PHOTO

ORLEANS – On the side of Nauset Regional Middle School across from Eldredge Park, a colorful mural adorns the wall, as well as the door marking the school's sixth grade entrance.

Boasting rays of sunshine in red, blue, orange, yellow and green colors and making good use of discarded bottle caps and other materials, the project is the end result of a month's worth of work from students in this summer's Sunburst STEAM Camp.

For program director Kristen Callahan, who also serves as director of technology integration for the Nauset Public Schools, the mural is more than a project. For students, it's an opportunity to leave a lasting mark on the middle school.

"They've seen the image of the mural inside, but they conceptually had a hard time visualizing how it would all come together," Callahan said on the second to last day of the month-long summer camp July 27. "So when they came yesterday, it was like this 'wow' factor. They can now look and go 'I worked on this one,' or 'I worked on that one.' They see how that individual work can come together to make something magnificent."

Approximately 80 Nauset students in grades five through eight took part in this summer's Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math, or STEAM, camp. Students took part in field trips and worked on various projects during this year's free camp, which ran from early July through July 28.

On the second to last day of camp, a "summer showcase" was held at the middle school, where parents, family members and friends were invited to look at students' various projects. A ribbon cutting was held to celebrate the completion of the mural at the start of the showcase.

Sarah Thornington, a "marine debris artist," helped oversee the mural as a Sunburst facilitator. Since 2019, she has been gathering and repurposing trash and items she finds at local beaches and turning them into art.

Students were presented with three design options to choose from. The chosen design was then mapped out in a grid, with different numbered pieces. Students then replicated the design of each square on the grid on cedar tiles, which when completed were assembled to make the mural. Students also drilled bottle caps and other items into the design.

"We have these little cards," explained Isabella Laine, 9, who is entering fifth grade in the fall. "They were all different and they had a number on the back. We had to paint it [like it is on the card], and we had to put the same color bottle caps on it."

While STEAM education is math- and science-centric, Thornington said projects such as the mural can help positively change students' behaviors. Her hope is that through working on the mural, students will come away with a better understanding of waste, what they use and how much. It also can help them grow up to be good environmental stewards.

"They're at that perfect age to go out there and find wonder in the planet," she said. "And if you love something, you protect it."

Students also worked to create cardboard boats during this summer's camp. With the help of staff from Nauset Marine and Arey's Pond Boat Yard, students designed and built their own boats, which were put to use during an end-of-camp boat derby in Nickerson State Park on Friday.

"It was really fun," said Lily Bodamer, who will start sixth grade at the middle school in the fall. "I loved the designing. It was great."

Bodamer was one of seven students that helped craft a flat-bottom cardboard boat. At the showcase, she showed designs for the boat, as well as simplified models that helped lead them toward their final design.

"I think it took one class to get the exact idea down, another class to get the base design," said Will Fernandes, who starts fourth grade at Eddy Elementary School in Brewster this fall. "I think it was either three or four classes total."

One of the group's early models involved wine corks, a toothpick and rubber bands.

"This floated pretty well, mainly because of the corks," Bodamer said. "The material they're made out of, it floats."

Tony Davis, owner of Arey's Pond Boat Yard, was on hand for last week's showcase. He helped lead a series of short classes for students on boatbuilding, and students used those concepts to help design their boats.

"I love this one, just because they thought about an extra shape," he said, pointing to one of the boats in the hallway. "They put in a keel."

Boating is a fixture of life on Cape Cod, and Davis said he welcomed the opportunity to take part in the camp. His hope is that some students might eventually be inspired to learn more about boatbuilding and perhaps one day enter the trade.

"I think when you can introduce a young person to any craft, you never know when that switch is going to go off," he said. "Between the instructors, Nauset Marine and myself, we may have flipped the switch, and they don't know it yet."

And it wasn't just students doing the learning at Sunburst. Paige Sullivan, a teacher at Orleans Elementary School who worked as a camp facilitator this summer, got a crash course in building birdhouses alongside her Sunburst campers. About 60 birdhouses were built, with some to be donated to the elementary and middle school outdoor classroom spaces on Boland Pond.

"I had never used a drill before," she said. "So when I found out we were going to be building 60 birdhouses..."

But Sullivan said the experience of learning a new skill alongside students ties into the type of experiential learning that Sunburst, as well as the Nauset district, tries to emphasize and promote.

"I just found it so much fun," she said. "This is what deeper learning is. The Nauset district talks a lot about deeper learning, not lecturing, but hands-on learning by doing. That's what this program does. I just find that so wonderful."

Email Ryan Bray at [email protected]