First things first. Where exactly is Bard? Located about about a 2 hour drive north of New York City, our site for BEAM 7 rests right along the Hudson River nestled among the trees. While at Bard, BEAM7 operates most heavily in three buildings: Keene, our home base and dormitory for students and staff; Kline, the cafeteria where we eat all three meals each day; and Hegeman, where most activities and classes take place!
Activities!
Pictured above: Counselor Kaylynn (middle) and instructor Javier (left of Kaylynn) play Set, a matching game which requires players to recognize patterns in a set of cards, with students Jack, Storm, and Seb.
At BEAM, students get to choose between a variety of activities offered by counselors and faculty, ranging from high-energy sports and games to more relaxing crafts. So far this week, counselors have run:
- Soccer, Ultimate Frisbee, Capture the Flag, Basketball
- Mandala Coloring, Hexaflexagon Making, Paper Airplanes
- THE Egg Drop Contest
- Cloud Watching, Exploring Bard's Campus, Settles of Catan
And this is just throughout the first week! Over the next two weeks, the counselors and staff will have many more activities to come...
But what about the math?
A number of students work diligently on problem sets in their Math Team Strategies class, which reviews techniques for quick in easy problem solving in the face of seemingly difficult questions. Mathematicians can be a lazy bunch, so learning the techniques to making challenging problems easier is an important skill set!
So what math are the kids actually doing? This week, we have the following options:
- Number Theory
- Combinatorics
- Turing Machines
- Graph Theory
- Math Team Strategies
- Solving Big Problems
The best thing about our courses--besides the amazing instructors who design and teach them--students choose what interests them! Each student is in one of the first four options (called the core topics courses) and one of the last two options (called the problem solving courses). Stay tuned for more updates on what's happening at Bard for BEAM 7 2017!