Brookview Montessori School

Brookview's Elementary Summer Program has a different theme each week. This past week, students enjoyed TitaniCamp, with Upper Elementary Lead Teacher Lindsay Gaspari at the helm.

On Monday, the students learned about buoyancy. Here, Nathan demonstrates how the bulkheads in a ship can help keep a ship afloat even if there is a hole and water comes in:

On Tuesday, campers learned about Displacement. They also designed boats made out of 4”x6” rectangles of aluminum foil and tested the load capacity. The winning boat held 39 pennies before sinking!

We were delighted to also have guest speaker Scott Gaspari, who presented the history of the Titanic in 30 minute segments each day. He has been giving this presentation to students since he was nine years old! He has updated it over the decades as modern computer graphics generate more realistic images. Scott, thanks so much for sharing your expertise with us!

TitaniCampers learned about how density and salinity affect buoyancy, and how the salt in the ocean lowers the freezing point. Then they attempted to recreate a backyard ocean with the temperature of the North Atlantic the night the Titanic sank. They added 14 cups of salt and 4 bags of ice to a pool of water. When the temperature reached 28° some of them plunged a foot into the icy depths!

This Titanic model is designed to sink and break apart similarly to the way the real ship sank:

Mr. Scott shared the stories of several of the survivors of the Titanic disaster. Here, the students are hearing the incredible story of Violet Jessop, a stewardess and survivor of the sinkings of the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic.

TitaniCampers learned about faulty rivets used on the Titanic. They made their own rivets from clay and pasta pieces. The clay represents pure iron and the pasta bits represent slag metal. After the “rivets” dry, the students compared the strength the slag metal rivets vs the pure iron rivets.

In this video, kids are playing Titanic at the park. There’s a wheel and a bell. One is ringing the bell furiously, someone is shouting about icebergs, and another is bellowing at people to get into lifeboats.

It was a wonderfully experiential week of learning.  We so appreciate the passion and expertise Lindsay and Scott passed on to the students.

While most of our Elementary Summer Camp Weeks are filled to capacity, we do have limited space in a few. Click here for a list of Summer Camp themes.

Please email info@brookviewschool.org for further information.