Weekends at Union: hiking, water park, field day, and Six Flags!

What do we do at BEAM on weekends? Check it out!

First, on Sunday, July 16, the Union students went hiking at Grafton Lakes State Park.  The mellow group explored the woods while the hardcore group hiked ~7 miles and climbed the fire tower!

The next day, Monday, July 17, we went to Zoom Flume water park, for fun with water rides, wave pools, and zip lines!

On Sunday, July 23, we had a field day on campus. In the battle of green vs. yellow vs. blue vs. red vs. purple vs. orange... orange won the day!

And, of course, our final field trip was to Six Flags on a very rainy day!

We've been having so much fun at Union!

Entering Week Two at Bard

BEAM 7 students and staff pose at the end of their hike atop the North South Lake campground.

Week 1 at the Bard Campus has come to a very exciting close, and Week 2 is promising to be even better than the last! There were amazing guest speakers, two thrilling field trips, and many other fun activities, both math related and not. Take a peek below for some highlights from moments in class throughout the week:

Week 1 topics courses concluded on Saturday, which means the second week of classes started this past Tuesday! This week, instructors have the following course offerings:

• Cryptography: Having Secrete Conversations in Public
• Group Theory
• The Royal Family, Evil Guy, and Evolution of Number Kingdoms
• The Chinese Remainder Theorem
• Math Team Strategies
• Solving Big Problems

Consistent with last week, students choose one of the first four options as their topics course, and they also choose one of the last two for their problem solving course. But what other opportunities do students have to explore fun mathematical concepts besides in class? In addition to a camp wide challenge problems--the second of which has yet to be solved--students partake in "Modules" Tuesday-Friday night. Modules gives the students a chance to see the mathematical concepts of the flavor they are likely to see in school, but they're slightly trickier and help develop quick and efficient mathematical problem solving skills.  

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In Other News...

We had many exciting things happen this week! With the conclusion of the first round of topics courses on Saturday, the students were rewarded with the first round of relays: a competition between groups of students where they must solve math puzzles while completing specific tasks to earns points--the teams with the most points get their peak of some neat prizes. In addition to that, students got the privilege to listen to 2 guest speakers on Saturday: Stephen Wolfram and Pedro Poitevin. Stephen Wolfram is a renowned mathematician and computer scientist who developed the popular program Mathematica and website WolframAlpha.com. Pedro Poitevin is a mathematics professor at Salem State University in Massachusetts, and he was also the undergraduate adviser to Javier, one of the instructors. Check out the pictures of Saturday's exciting events below!

As a weekend treat, we went on a group hike at the North South Lake campground, where most students and staff made the 2 hour trek to the top. After enjoying a stunning view of upstate New York, there was a picnic ready and waiting at our hike's starting point, where the kids got to spend some well-deserved free time hanging out and playing games before packing up to head back to Bard.

Students getting ready to start their hike!

Six Flags!

It's everyone's favorite field trip!  On Monday, July 25, the whole BEAM team headed to Six Flags New England for a day of roller coasters, bumper cars, and shopping for super hero capes!  After a full (and hot!) day at the park, we headed to Friendly's for dinner and then back to campus.  Here are some favorite photos of the day:

 

At the Water Park

On Monday, July 18, the whole group (Vassar and Bard students, too!) went to Splashdown Beach for a fun water park day (even if it was shortened by the rain!).  Here are some photos of our day!