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Sky search: UW-Rock's College for Kids offers astronomy program

Photo

Photo by Bill Olmsted

Janesville Parker teacher Neal Boys is teaching an astronomy class this summer at UW-Rock County's College for Kids.

JANESVILLE — Old school astronomy: Gaze at the night sky and ponder.

New school astronomy: Send a robot to Mars.

Both the high-tech and low-tech ways of learning about the stars and planets still work, and they'll be a part of the annual College for Kids program at UW-Rock County in Janesville.

Neal Boys, a teacher at Janesville's Parker High School, got started in astronomy while teaching it in his earth science classes over the past 13 years.

"The more I taught it, the more interest I've had in it," he said.

It's easy to see why most anyone would find this ancient/modern science fascinating.

In the past generation, rival nations have cooperated in building an international space station. New countries have joined the space race, including China, India and Japan. The United States has successfully deployed not one, but two robots on the surface of Mars. The Hubble space-based telescope has provided jaw-dropping images from deep space.

Boys won't be able to teach every aspect of modern astronomy in a week's worth of classes. He's decided to focus on what a backyard astronomer can pick out, such as tracking the International Space Station across the sky.

Students will build a rudimentary telescope to help them see farther into space. The course is during the daytime, but Boys will use Web sites and other methods to help kids learn more by scanning the skies at night.

And, Boys plans to lead the students through the building of their own model Mars rovers.

For those who don't keep track of such things, the Mars rovers named Spirit and Opportunity are still sending data back to Earth after four years, much longer than they were expected to hold out.

The College for Kids rovers won't possess anywhere near technical sophistication of Spirit or Opportunity, but they should give students an appreciation of the engineering problems encountered by the brainy engineers of NASA.

Boys hopes to set up an obstacle course, and his junior space engineers will be able to compete to see who can finish the course fastest.

Summer programs for kids at UW-Rock

UW-Rock County's College for Kids has expanded into four separate programs.

-- Mandarin Chinese Language Camp, for children entering grades 4-8, 9-11:50 a.m. Monday-Friday, July 14-18. Cost is $89.

-- LEAPS, for children entering grades 2-4, 9-11:45 a.m. Monday through Friday, July 28-Aug. 1. Cost is $89. Children attend two courses, which include Aspiring Architects, Spectacular States: Sea and Sky, Polar Pals, Rockin' Rockets, Create Your Own Board Game and Shoebox Science.

-- College for Kids, for children entering grades 5-8, 9 a.m.-3:20 p.m. Monday through Friday, July 28-Aug. 1, unless parents pay an extra $20 for the Rubik's Cube Challenge course, 8-8:45 a.m. Tuesday through Friday. Cost is $89 to attend only the morning course, or $159 for both a morning and afternoon course. Courses include Band Clinic; Checkmate!; Dare to Draw; Painting Play; Snap, Crackle & Pop Chemistry; Creative Writing; NXT Mindstorm Session; Rockin' Rockets; Exploring Astronomy; Crime Scene Investigation; and Computer Game Programming.

-- STEM or Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, for children entering grades 6-8, which ran in June.

All classes are at UW-Rock, 2909 Kellogg Ave. Scholarships might be available for those who qualify financially. Snacks are included.

For information on all these camps, call Stacy Randall at (608) 758-6541 or e-mail stacy.randall@uwc.edu. Or go online at http://rock.uwc.edu/courses/continuing.