Pine Valley Outdoor Science Camp joins 35 other camps from across the United States selected to participate in the NASA GLOBE Goes to Camp Program in 2023. As part of this nationally recognized NASA GLOBE Camp Project, Pine Valley’s campers can connect with NASA scientists as they take on the role of a citizen-scientist collecting local environmental data to assist NASA and the GLOBE Community in a better understanding of the climate where they live.
Pine Valley Outdoor Science Camp Program and Education Manager Jessica Lippe said the camp is specifically for school groups.
“We take schools from all over San Diego County, and outside of the county, including schools in the Los Angeles region and Arizona,” she said.
Lippe said the NASA program has been going on for about a year and works with camps from all over the country.
“We are the only camp in San Diego County doing this program,” she said.
“We learn about different aspects of nature, whether it is trees, water quality, soil. We take the information that we gather from our camps, and then we send it off to NASA so they can compare it with their research. It is beneficial both ways. We get to provide information to NASA, and NASA provides curriculum for kids to get experience in ways that gives them hands-on experience.”
Lippe said this coming school year is the first time they will offer curriculum from NASA, but she has been working with NASA for several months doing training, and determining what they want to offer with their NASA program.
“One of the classes we are going to be offering, a new class called Trees and Me, we are going to be collecting information about our trees to send to NASA,” she said. “We will also be learning how trees can connect with us in an analogy way. Just by looking at a tree section we can see the tree rings. Each ring represents a different year, and we can tell what happened during that year. So, something that the kids will be doing is making a cross section of their own life. If something happened within one of their years, they could mark that in a certain way so that they can have a tree ring of their own life.”
Lippe said the camp is mostly for middle school, but it takes fourth through twelfth grade. Lippe said signing up for the camp goes through the schools, so students who are interested need to talk to their teachers or principals if interested so that the school can reach out to the camp for involvement in the program.
By participating in this NASA GLOBE Goes to Camp experience, students from local schools gain STEM learning opportunities designed to bridge classroom learning with real-world application. Students learn team building skills as they work together to make a difference in their own communities, developing a sense of environmental stewardship as they actively engage in the process of citizen science, and gain valuable career insight as they interact with NASA scientists. Students will be able to collaborate with other campers participating in the pilot, learning not only about their local data, but also gaining perspectives related to data being collected by camps across the United States. For more information about Pine Valley Outdoor Science Camp, visit pinevalleyoutdoorscience. com.
