CHMS students explore science, reading and math at summer camp

Most students leaned back and scrunched up their noses as they dissected their worms, but 10-year-old Jack Brown put his face right next to the creature to get a better look.

“I think I have the strongest stomach in here,” Brown said with a smile, adding that he thought the experience was “awesome.”

Brown was part of a group of 41 Charles Henderson Middle School students participating in a summer camp focused on reading, math and science.

“It gives the students an opportunity to do the things that sometimes we don’t get to do in the classroom,” said eighth-grade physical science teacher Amanda Challancin.

Students were invited to take part in the free four-day experience and were split up into a morning group of upcoming sixth-graders and an afternoon group of seventh, eighth and ninth graders.

“Since the students responded to an invitation, they wanted to be here. They all wanted to learn,” Challancin said. “It is a joy to work with a full group of students who all desire the knowledge.”

Samantha Martin, 11, said she decided to attend the camp because she wanted to see what life in middle school would be like.

The science lab on Thursday was no disappointment for the upcoming sixth-grader as she was allowed to dissect a worm.

“It was both surprising and exciting,” Martin said with a grin.

And it wasn’t just a test of nerves and nausea. Arman Sheffield said he learned that worms have five hearts.

“We had to take out the hearts. They were really close together,” Sheffield explained.

Even though the worm project was “cool,” it wasn’t the 11-year-old Sheffield’s favorite thing about summer camp. His best experience was building Rube Goldberg machines.

“That’s a bunch of small machines put together to make a complex machine,” the upcoming sixth-grader confidently shared.

The camp began Monday and ended Thursday and wasn’t a disappointment to the kids who will be CHMS students in the fall.

“I thought it would be fun,” Martin said, “but it was so much better.”