Weekend Fun and our Start of week 2!

Week one has come to end and it is time for some off-campus enjoyment!

As the well-anticipated end of the week arrived, BEAM students prepared themselves for a weekend full of activities. Upon Monday morning's arrival, as a part of their daily routine, students headed to the dining hall prepared to stack up on the nutrients which that will help them power through the busy day. After breakfast and a few turns of water bottles filling, kids made their way to the coach bus-- now fully ready to embark on their mini road trip.  

After both check-ins at the water park and applying sunscreen, our young adolescent campers divided into small groups. While in their well-supervised small groups, they then made their way to water slides exploring what the park had to offer.

When lunchtime arrived at around 1 PM,  we once again, gathered as a camp, ate, and then, prepared to head back to Bard College. At the end of this fulfilling day, tired bodies guided themselves to bed expecting to be well rested for days ahead of them.

At BEAM, Tuesdays mark the start of a new week. Just a day after their water park fun,  BEAM students were mentally ready to go in their classes and hold class discussions on Symmetries and problem-solving theories. When completely submerging themselves into their classes either as a group or as individuals, these students have shown an immense amount of improvement. 

 We applaud the hard and effort applied by every student.  As we approach our last week of camp, we can only encouraged that this habit continues to be practiced beyond BEAM.

Weekend Trips at BEAM 7

BEAM works a little differently in that our academic week is Tuesday-Saturday and our weekend is Sunday and Monday. We do this so that when we go on fun trips, they’re less crowded and kids can really get the most out of their day off!

This past Sunday was our first field trip. We went to Grafton Lakes State Park, where we hiked and hung out at the beach. Most of the camp went for a fun, short hike around the lake and spent several hours at the lake, where they swam, built “sand volcanoes,” played sports, and just hung out with one another. Four of our students—Anais, Brandon, Cynthia, and Emmanuela—went on our hardcore hike. They hiked about 8 miles and climbed a fire tower! Here’s a photo of them with the amazing view they got at the top. 

Here are a few photos of all of our students hanging out around the lake:

We came back incredibly exhausted, but excited for the next day: Zoom Flume Water Park!

At Zoom Flume, we spent the day riding crazy slides and rides and enjoying ourselves in the wave pool. Since we were at the park at the same time as BEAM 7’s Bard group, we got to know some of the other students. We don't have many photos from the water park, because we didn't want to get our phones wet!

The weekend was pretty jam-packed, but we’re already back and starting a whole new week of classes! 

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!

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!