‘We’re empowered by science’

Cardiologist. Pharmacist. Surgeon. Engineer.

Those were a few of the future careers students in Wilkes University’s WEBS (We’re Empowered by Science) summer camp told a visitor they want to pursue.

Other responses from some of these middle schoolers?

“Theater director,” said one. “Lawyer,” said another.

“I want to be an artist,” said 12-year-old Aliyah Walters, a Solomon/Plains student who attended the camp with her twin sister, Ailena. “But I also want to change the world.”

No matter what fields they want to eventually enter, on Thursday afternoon the WEBS campers were taking steps to change their own worlds, as they learned about subjects as diverse as crime scene investigation, the physics of dance and the anatomy revealed by the dissection of frogs.

“You can really see the organs,” 13-year-old Emily Brito from GAR Middle School said as she and her lab partner, Maya Lais, cut past their frog’s skin and abdominal muscles.

Earlier in the week, Emily and Maya said, they had enjoyed a nutrition lesson in which they’d analyzed a cracker and a piece of liver to compare the levels of fat and sugar, and they’d enjoyed drawing pictures, based on genetics, of what their future children might look like.

Some of the other topics 105 campers have been covering during the week-long camp included CPR, Relics of the Past, Coastal Impacts of Sea Level Rise, Viscosity, DNA Extraction and Analysis, Pharmacists, Robots, Pig Dissection and “You Be the Doctor.”

Several young women were taking Physics of Dance early Thursday afternoon, dancing up a storm before settling down to discuss such topics as momentum and gravity with instructor Mary Siejak.

“Most dancers probably think of it as a physical art,” said Abby Blockus, a Wilkes University biology major from Dallas who is serving as a group leader during the camp. “But there’s a lot of science involved.”

“The camp gives (the participants) a lot of hands-on experience in labs,” said Cameran Costello, another group leader who is an environmental engineering major from West Chester. Citing that as the best part of the camp she said it shows future college students “this is how intense science could get.”

Back in the frog dissection lab, WEBS camp director Debra Chapman guided the budding surgeons step by step.

One young students admitted it was her first frog, but she hunts and has gutted a deer, so she’s not squeamish.

“You have the lovers and the haters,” Chapman said, “and usually nothing in between.”

Serafina Schliska from Good Shepherd Academy said the dissection was nothing to dread.

“I just don’t like the smell,” she added.

“Fair enough,” said group leader Matilda Masten, who is a pharmacy major from Hazleton.