[sac-forum] Report from Camp Friendly Pines

Well, the Girl Scout encampment is over and I'm beat! It was a lot of work,
but as you'll see well worth the effort. Camp Friendly Pines is about 6
miles south of Prescott at 6000'. Our Accommodations (Dubbed the "Mancave"
by Jimmy) were very comfortable and the Food was quite good as well. We were
made to feel very welcome by the Scout leaders, camp staff & parents.

The girls were full of enthusiasm & curiosity and a lot of fun to work with.

We Helped 96 girls earn their Space Explorer Try it badge. To do this, Chris
helped them make Planispheres and showed them how they are used.  Jimmy
showed them how to make a sundial and how to tell time with one. We used the
sundial template that Jeff Hopkins had given me a while back and they worked
out great, Kept good time too! Thanks Jeff.

The girls also got to use their imaginations and "designed their own
constellations". They were able to look at them through Pringle can
telescopes. I then took them on a journey to Girl Scout camp on the moon.
But they had to design their own spacesuits. We talked about all the things
a spacesuit has to do to keep an astronaut safe and then they drew pictures
of themselves in their spacesuits.

We work in 8 rotations of 12 girls each over Saturday & Sunday. We had 4
tables set up for each activity and he girls moved between each table as
they finished that activity. This means we each demonstrated & taught the
activities 32 times over the course of the encampment! 

The highlight of the night was taking them out into the meadow after the
campfire and showing them what we'd been talking about. I gave them the 50
cent laser tour of the sky, pointing out the constellations we talked about
during the day. Then we showed them through the telescopes. As you'd expect,
Saturn was the show stopper, with plenty of OOH's and "Awesomes" to go
around. I also got to show them M35, M3 & M81&82. By this time most of the
girls (and a lot of moms) were pretty dead tired, along with three
astronomers, so about 2200 things wrapped up for the evening. We would've
stayed out and observed a bit more, but we had to get up at 0630 to make it
to breakfast and get ready for our last three rotations. (Did I mention this
was a lot of work?!)

For me the whole thing was worth the trip when while waiting for dinner to
be served, I felt something around my legs. A girl named Stephanie was
giving me a big hug. That was worth more than I can say. 

I'll have some pictures and more about the event at the next meeting (Steve,
may as well put me on the agenda now).

Clear Skies

Rick Tejera

Editor SACnews

Saguaro Astronomy Club

Phoenix, Arizona

www.saguaroastro.org <http://www.saguaroastro.org/> 

saguaroastro@xxxxxxx

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