The second week of VAMPY is in full swing, with many campers going on field trips. Monday, most of the STEM classes (Astronomy, Chemistry, DNA and Genetics, and Math) went to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. On Tuesday, the pop culture class visited Nashville, the home of some of the most influential American culture out there. On July 4th, the psychology class will visit the Nashville zoo, using their learned material as a framework to discuss human and animal behavior. These trips are indicative of the greatest strength of VAMPY, classwork augmented by activities that serve both the purpose of entertaining and informing.
During the week, we’ve continued our optionals schedule, including the infamous “CTF day.” This day, which only happens once during the entirety of camp, features a list of activities all called CTF, which is implied to stand for Capture the Flag. However, each of the activities is unique, but named to fit CTF. An example of this would be Complete the Forums, led by Evie Ellis and myself. For each camper that signed up, we printed out a random wikipedia article. From there, they had to read the article, fill it with as much comedic misinformation as they could, make a poster about the topic, and then present it to the group. Another example would be Create the Future, where the campers were split up into the three groups and tasked with creating a unique, fictional world of their own. The real Capture the Flag optional, of course, was sprinkled in there. VAMPY, as much as it is a camp where kids have fun and learn, has an affinity for getting campers out of their comfort zone and trying new things. This is exactly what CTF day is designed to do. Of course, they all had plenty of fun in their optionals anyway.