The Calhoun County Library held a very colorful STEM Science Camp the last week in June with a wonderful retired chemist.
All About Colors was the topic of the STEM Science Camp this year. It took place from Monday, June 23, 2025, through Friday, June 27, 2025. Each class was from 11:45 AM - 1 PM. Our teacher was the wonderful Dr. Lesa Rice-Jackson, who led us through a five-day week full of experiments and thrills.
On day one, we made color wheels and learned about everything from primary colors, hues, how to make the secondary colors, and the foundation of colors. This gave our scientists a baseline of information to build on for the rest of the week.
On day two, we learned about color solutions by mixing water, dyes, chemicals like hydrochloric acid, and in-house foods like purple cabbage and vinegar together. This gave our scientists a physical illusion of how colors work and change depending on what comes in contact with them.
On day three, we did a scavenger hunt around the library to search for the primary and secondary colors. This gave our scientists a chance to find these colors in the wild and explore how books are colorful in many ways.
On day four, we made a wearable, a tie dye visor hat, using household items. With colored Kool-aid and some water, we used paint brushes to draw on base colors and then designs on their hats. After they were finished, they had a choice whether or not to spray their wearable with rubbing alcohol, which dilutes the colors and spreads them out. This allowed our scientists to express their personalities in a colorful, wearable form.
On day five, we had our color-bration to celebrate all of our scientists who completed this week-long STEM Science Camp with us. We even had to highlight some of the best notebooks, most improved, best wearable, and other awards just because these scientists put their best work forward, especially during summer when they aren’t even in school.
We are very pleased with the turnout of the 2025 STEM Science Camp. It was a blast! We would like to extend our greatest thanks to Dr. Lesa Rice-Jackson for putting on a wonderful and well-thought-through STEM Science Camp full of colors to fit right into our Summer Reading Program theme: Color Our World. We would also like to thank the Orangeburg Chick-fil-a for donating a special prize to each of our STEM Science Camp scientists for their hard work. Of course, the Calhoun County Library would not be able to put on programs like these without the support of our volunteers so we would like to thank them for always being there to lend us a helping hand.