Camp and High School Chemistry

I received an e-mail from my Uncle Bruce the other day with a link to an article in the LA Times about my high school Chemistry teacher. Mr. Boomer, or the Boom, as everyone called him, has been at the same high school in the Santa Cruz Mountains for 50 years teaching Chemistry and Physics. I have attached a link to the article if you'd like to check it out. http://home.comcast.net/%7epqshop/latimes/latimes.html

To tell this story, I must first admit that as a teenager, I was not only a bit of a know it all, but also had moments where I was down right snotty. I know you are all surprised :). I can remember telling the Boom very early on in my Chemistry career that I did not "need" Chemistry, because I was going to law school, and obviously attorneys had no need for hard science. Now, having been raised by a smart alec, I should have known better than to give someone THAT much ammunition. For the rest of my years in high school, I was called "the lawyer" anytime I opened my mouth in Boom's class. So, after receiving and reading the article last week, I talked to my husband Craig about Mr. Boomer and my memories of Chemistry and Physics. I was astounded to find out that Craig's Chemistry teacher NEVER blew anything up. Not only that, but he never even got to light the bunsen burners, never got to experience BIG QUAL (qualitative analysis) where you actually cooked and added chemicals to discover what compound you had been given, and didn't remember much of anything. I STILL remember some of the elements on the periodic table, the formula for Sulphuric Acid and many other obscure facts from my BIG CHEM & MIGHTY PHYSICS career. I'm 36 years old and haven't taken a single Chemistry or Physics class since High School. Even with Boom's influence, I chose Intro to Oceanography as my college science requirement. One of the labs involved going to the beach and counting waves, totally my kind of science, but I digress.

You may wonder what in the world my high school science career has to do with camp! Quite a lot, actually. About the same time, I was taking this walk down memory lane, I was also putting together a banner for the Expo we attended this weekend. I was trying to figure out how to crystallize the camp experience for potential camp families. Why is camp important? What lessons are learned here?
Interestingly, what I came up with was Experiential Learning, and learning through play. Which of course, led me right back to Boom's classroom. Mr. Boomer always took so much pleasure from teaching and we learned through play! WE BLEW STUFF UP AND LIT THINGS ON FIRE! And, those lessons are still with me. The lessons we teach at camp are obviously quite different from the ones taught in a science classroom (I am still way more into the social science part of life :), but they are as enduring. When we learn through experience and play, those lessons stay with us far longer and can change who we are and how we see the world. So, maybe "the lawyer" did need Chemistry after all! Much thanks to you Boom! And, to everyone else, GO PLAY!