Good morning and welcome to Camp.

I'm Lori.

>> I'm Dan.

And we're coming to you from Camp Fowler, located in Orfield, Pennsylvania.

>> We have a lot of awesome activity scheduled for this week.

We'll be learning a lot of cool things from the Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

And then we're going to check in the garden back with farmer Erika to check out what's new.

>> We'll also be doing some crafts with our friends from ArtsQuest.

Let's start the day with our friends, Jenn and Isaac.

>> Campers, welcome back.

I'm Dan.

>> I'm Isaac.

>> I'm Jenn.

>> We now have our friend here, Jess.

And today we're going to focus and continue on with letting go and moving on.

And speaking of moving on, we always want to think about other things that are bigger than ourselves.

All right.

Put things into perspective.

We're going to do an activity here today relates to one of my favorite parts about camp.

So my favorite part about camp is right when the sun goes down and the stars start coming up, and you look up and you see all these bright stars and constellations just shining down, something usually you don't see when you're kind of close to the cities because the lights kind of blur it out.

But the stars and constellations, you just go in wonderment and wow.

Like, it's amazing, you know, that they're that far away.

And I'm just this little speck on this little rock called Earth.

So we're gonna do an activity called tin cans, slash stars and constellations.

So you're gonna need some materials with this at home.

First materials is trying to get some cylinders.

OK.

So I grabbed some stuff from home and the best probably would be just a typical tin can cylinder.

All right.

These are probably the best right here.

You know, you make a lot of soup.

Just hang on to kitchen items.

Now, just be careful, though, if you're with your parents or guardians, when you're peeling off the top of the can to use it for lunch or dinner.

Just be careful.

This part is really sharp.

Sharp.

I've cut myself many times with this.

I just want to show you that just to be very careful.

So if you don't want to play around with metal tin cans, there's also other cylinders you can use.

You can use... This is one of those oats containers.

All right.

It's cardboard.

Same thing.

Has a top gone and the bottom's there or you can use one of those chip containers.

All right.

Nice and long.

Still has a little tin on the bottom.

All right.

And still open.

All right.

So these are some items you could probably find at home or close by.

Other items you might want to need is possibly maybe a small little hammer.

All right.

If you don't have a small hammer, you can probably find a rock.

Find a rock outside.

You know, grab that.

The next item is probably the most important, is to get some nails.

All right.

You can get some thin nails or you can gets, you know, some thicker nails.

All right.

Doesn't matter how long they are.

And then finally, you want to make sure you have some flashlights to kind of shine your constellation up against that wall or that dark spot at home or when you wait until it's dark out, when the sun goes down, you go outside and shine it so you can actually see what your constellation looks like.

All right.

So we have our materials here.

So I'm going to have Jenn, Isaac and Jess.

We're going to try to see what type of constellation that they're going to make that relates to themselves.

All right.

And usually constellations kind of form pictures.

It's like playing connect the dots.

So when you make your own constellation, guys, be creative.

Think about who you are.

Think about some symbols or images or animals or anything that you want to kind of create that resembles you.

So I'm going to let you decide which cylinder you want to pick, and I'll hand out the hammers.

So that one's for you, that one's for you.

I'm going to give you the rock.

All right.

And then I will give you the tin one.

All right.

And then give you your set.

Here's yours.

And then, Jess, this is yours.

So use the table here, because you're gonna need the space to kind of put your constellation together.

Be as creative as you want.

And it's okay to make a lot of sound for this.

Might want to do it early in the morning because you might wake up neighbors or your cats.

I like how you guys have the cylinders upside down.

It's just a lot easier to make your holes that way.

I can see the creativity kicking in for each of you, doing something slightly different.

When you're done... You know, anybody need more extra time?

All right.

OK.

Well, we're going to... Obviously, it's not dark here.

So we're going to try to go some place where it is so we can check out our cool constellations.

But our journal prompt for today is we want to make sure you guys find time to make your own constellations and design something that relates to you to kind of reflect on how things are bigger than yourself.

And if you don't have these tools, you can actually just draw your own constellation, you know, be creative, use any type of paper, pen, pencil marker, and we'll see you later.

All right.

Bye.

>> That was great.

Let's go learn something new with our friends from the Cradle of Liberty Council, from the Boy Scouts of America.

>> Hi, kids.

I'm here to demonstrate something that will make something really fun for you at home.

We're going to build a catapult and as you can see in front of me, the things you need to build a catapult are very, very simple.

There are nine popsicle sticks, three rubber bands, a plastic spoon and a few peas, dried peas.

But you could use something else in your catapult as well.

So let's get started.

So I'm going to take eight of these popsicle sticks, put them together, and I'm going to take a rubber band and put it at one end.

Then I'll take the last popsicle stick and slide it under the bottom stick in this stack of eight.

And I will add another rubber band at the other end.

So now you have this stack of sticks, eight of them with two rubber bands at the end.

And I've slid the last popsicle stick in between.

Take the spoon and I'll use my last rubber band to attach the spoon to the end of the bottom popsicle sticks.

And there you have it.

And as you can see, the spoon is attached at one end and is free to move at the other end.

And that is the principle that we will use to launch the peas that I'm going to put on in a moment.

This is an example of a simple lever, a class one lever where, by holding it at one end and applying this pressure, I can actually use the lever principle to put some force behind the pea that I'm going to launch.

The other thing to notice is if I can slide this back and forth and that way increase the arm of the lever or decrease the arm of the lever, and that lets you control how far your pea is going to go.

So let's try it.

And I'm going to try it with just a very short arm.

And I'm putting a pea in there.

And it'll probably be hard for you to see where it flies.

But let's take a look.

And so off it goes and you probably heard it bounce on the table and it went about this far, and by moving this stack forward, I can increase the length of the arm of this lever and do the same.

And that pea has almost left the pavilion.

And so by changing the length of the arm, you can change the force that is applied to the pea and allow it to launch.

Now, if you wanted to change the angle at which it launches, I've just taken a matchbox and propped up the catapult on the matchbox and we'll try it at this angle.

And you would expect, because I propped it up, that it will go even further.

So let's see if it does.

And it didn't quite work the way I thought it would.

Right.

And part of doing science is to actually play with the variables you have.

The distance of the fulcrum.

This is known as the fulcrum, the height that you raise it at.

And by playing with those variables, you can test how far the pea will go and how how high the pea will go.

So this is an easy way to make the catapult at home.

As you saw, it took almost no time.

And it's something you can do a lot of experiments with.

And that's what it means to be a scientist.

This is an example of something that you can do science with in a very, very easy way.

So now let's go and look at a real life trebuchet, which is using the same principle of the lever to do something even more dramatic.

So let's go out and take a look at that trebuchet.

Well, kids, now that we've seen how to make one out of popsicle sticks, you're going to see how a real trebuchet works.

So let me introduce you to my friends, Halani and Rona.

And here in front of us is a model trebuchet, which they are going to use to show you how a larger version of the catapult that we built works.

So here goes.

>> That was fantastic.

Let's go see what our friends at Valley Youth House are up to.

>> Hello, campers, Farmer Erika here at the garden at Camp Fowler with Valley Youth House.

Today, we're gonna have some fun.

We're gonna plant some new stuff in the garden.

It's very hot out.

Beautiful weather.

If you look around, you'll see very luscious green plants, healthy plants.

So this time of year, it's really hot.

So earlier in this bed were peas, snap peas, they're cold weather plants, so they can't handle it when it's too hot.

So I took them out.

And today I'm going to plant something different, something called Swiss chard.

It's a leafy green.

You can saute it and mix it in your stir fries or you can just cut it up and eat it in a salad.

So one of the great things about having a garden is that you grow different things all year round.

Some people make a garden plan and they plan where they're going to put their cold-weather crops.

And once their cold weather crops are done and removed, then they plant other crops that can handle the heat.

So that's exactly what I'm going to do today.

I'm lucky enough to have some of this really great plant food.

So a local company around here makes us plant food off of corn casings.

So it's very nutritious for the soil.

What I'm going to do is I will take the scooper here and I'm gonna scoop a little bit of this plant food and I'm going to kind of sprinkle it into the soil here just to give it a little bit more nutrition, because earlier here there were peas.

So the peas used a lot of the nutrients in the soil.

And whenever you replant something in the same area, you want to give it some kind of food or fertilizer or compost if you have it on hand.

Think about that word compost.

We'll talk about that in another episode later on in our series.

So I have my soil.

It's all nice and loose, I use my little fork here to get it ready.

Now I have it ready, I'm going to smooth it out and I mix that plant food in, I'm all ready I'm very prepared.

I had my little sign here so I know what I plant and when I planted it.

So when I look back and if it doesn't come up, I know something went wrong.

So now I'm just going to use my hand here to make a little row.

I'll put a little row here and another row and these two rows are not too close together because that's this type of plant needs more room to grow.

If I put them too close together, they'd only be really little.

I want big giant leafy greens.

So now going to scoop some of these seeds out and these seeds are really cool.

They kind of look like little popcorn kernels.

All right.

So I want to take one seed at a time.

I want to plant them about this far apart.

They need a little bit more room for them to grow.

Drop it gently in the soil.

And if you not noticed behind me, here is this pizza plant.

It's a tomato plant.

You look real clos, little cherry tomatoes here.

So this plant has grown really big since the last time I planted it.

All right, so I've got my seeds in.

Put these extras back here in the container.

Cover them up because, remember, if I don't cover up my seeds, a bird or something else is going to come and eat them.

And I don't want that to happen.

These are for me and everybody else in the community to enjoy.

So since it's so hot, I definitely need to water.

I have my hose here.

Gonna give it just a little spray, give it a good soaking.

When you have 90 degree weather days, a little sprinkle is not going to be enough.

You're gonna need to really soak the soil and maybe even water it two times a day, early morning before it gets too hot and late at night when the sun goes down.

Right.

I think that looks good for me.

Thank you for your time.

Looking forward to teaching you some more cool things and harvesting some more delicious food from the garden on our next episode.

>> Thanks.

That was great.

Let's check in with our friends from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania.

>> I'm Lynn with the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania.

And this week, we are using our five senses to explore nature.

Today, we're going to focus on our sense of touch.

Actually, our whole bodies can feel things in the world around us.

When you're walking through the sun, you feel the heat of the sun.

When you walk on into the shade, you feel the coolness.

Once you're under the shade, you can feel the rain falling on you and even your feet are good at that sense of touch.

When you're walking across ground, you can tell, is this hard ground?

Is it soft?

Is it grassy?

So our whole bodies really can be used for this, but our fingers are definitely the most sensitive part for using our sense of touch.

And that's what we are going to do today.

We are going to collect a whole bunch of textures from nature.

But first, a couple things.

I need to make sure you all know what poison ivy looks like because we do not want to touch poison ivy.

And poison ivy is tricky because it can look like a tree, a plant, a bush.

It can be red or green, shiny or not, smooth edged or jagged edged.

All of these leaves are poison ivy.

But here's the thing that they always have in common.

There's always three of them.

So a stem and then a center stem with a center leaf and then two on the side.

OK?

Not everything with three leaves is poison ivy.

But if you're not sure, just avoid it.

OK?

So that's the first thing before we start collecting.

Here's the second thing.

We want to make sure that we don't collect anything that would be bad for the environment to collect it.

So we're going to use the rule of ten for collectors.

Here's how it goes.

Pick with a reason in your mind.

For each one you pick, leave nine behind, some for beauty, some for seed, some on which wild animals feed.

Two square feet must hold that many.

Otherwise, look, but don't pick any.

All right.

With those rules, you are ready to start collecting some textures.

You can use any kind of container.

But if you happen to have an ice cube tray, it's kind of fun because it has all these compartments.

You can put a different texture in each compartment or an egg carton.

I actually have already... I went out and about and I collected a whole bunch of different textures.

Check this out.

I walked around my neighborhood and here is, this is from a sweet gum tree.

So that's pretty prickly.

On the other hand, I have a rock that's kind of rough.

Right.

But look at this.

The seeds from from this weed that I found very soft.

And here is an acorn.

So it's a little rough on the top, but very smooth down here.

So the activity here is to try to find as many different textures as you can and fill up all of your compartments.

So I hope you have fun doing that.

And I'll see you again tomorrow.

All right.

Thanks.

Bye.

>> Let's go learn something new with our friends from the Minsi Trail Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

>> Hello, I'm John with Minsi Trails Council, Boy Scouts America.

And welcome back to It's Camp.

On today's session of It's Camp, we're going to go over a more complex knot called two half hitches.

And the easiest way to tie two half hitches, because it is a little bit complex with all the components in it, I have a special book here that we do sell at our scout shop.

And you can buy online and we use it in the scouting program.

This book has all the knots and the ways to tie.

And it shows you how to tie knots in his book.

And I think it's the best way to show you how those knots are tied.

So with this more complex knot, two half hitches is used for a couple of things, tying a knot to a pole to tie something off or commonly used as a boat mooring line.

So if you were tying the boat to a cleat that's on a dock, it's going to cinch itself.

It's going to keep the boat there and the knot's going to stay tied on that cleat without falling apart.

So two half hitches involves a couple of components of the knot.

There again, you have a bight, you're working with hitches and you're working with overhand and underhand knot.

So, this knot, here I go, overhand.

And I take my working end and I'm going to go through the bight from underneath, just like that.

So there's my hitch.

There's my bight.

Next part, I'm going to cross what I just sent over.

Now I'm going over again.

But underneath and I'm following through and I'm pulling that through.

So I made it essentially an X. Overhand and underhand together.

I pull through.

Now this knot slides and slips.

OK, so two half hitches working off the same rope pulled together, it's now going to tie to the object you want to tie it to.

Hopefully that was easy enough for you today.

Thanks.

And we'll catch you next time.

>> Let's jump over to the Banana Factory and check out some cool crafting with ArtsQuest.

>> Today, I'm going to show you how to make a simple friendship bracelet.

When I heard we were making a show about camp, I thought this was my number one camp craft, camp memory that I have is making like dozens of these.

And they're pretty simple to do, but a little bit time consuming.

So what you need for this is some sort of string.

My favorite is embroidery floss.

But you can use yarn, you can use kind of whatever you have available to you.

And it's nice if you can have a few different colors because then you can get cool effects like stripes and things like that.

So I'm thinking for mine, I'm going to do orange and two different colors of blue today.

I will say orange has got to be my favorite color right now.

So you can grab some of your string.

Embroidery floss is a really nice width or like thickness, which is why I like it.

And usually you want about like three or four times as long as you want your bracelet or necklace or whatever you're making to be.

So I'm just going to eyeball it because it's hard for me to kind of wrap around my wrist.

But we'll say that's about four times what I need it to be for my bracelet length.

And I'll do the same with all of the colors that I want to use with my bracelet.

One last time.

OK.

So three colors is enough.

I wouldn't do less than three usually with one of these bracelets.

So now I can just tie a knot in the top of my strings to hold them all together.

We're good to go.

And my biggest suggestion for you guys, so you don't like slowly go crazy as you're trying to put these together is use a piece of masking tape to hold it in place.

Because trying to do it without having it secured is just frustrating.

Not really fun.

The knot itself that we're gonna do is pretty simple.

I'm going to pick out one of my strings, though, if you want to get a cool pattern or if you want to like add a lot of string or a lot of knots really fast, you can actually pick up two strings at once and that is fine.

What we're going to do with it is we're going to make a four.

So my two strings are going down the middle as a straight line and my string that I'm using to make the knot is coming round outside of it to make a for.

I'm going to take the end and put it underneath my two straight strings.

I can pull it really tight and it'll make a little loop around there and then I can guide that all the way up to the top.

And now you have a few options.

You can alternate colors every time you do a knot.

But what I like to do is add a few knots in a row so you can keep it consistent.

Like maybe I'll add four or five knots in a row.

I can even do ten.

Because what you'll see is when you do the same color in a row over and over again you get an interesting spiral effect going down the line where it's just you're not slowly turning around your string.

It's interesting.

OK.

I lost count.

That's probably only eight.

But you might be able to see that we have this little ridge kind of curving over the edge.

So I've always liked that as a kid.

But now we can move on to our next color.

So maybe I'll add some light blue this time and you can do like the same length.

You can go, like I'm going to do another eight of these, but maybe I'll do something kind of short.

So I mix up my pattern.

So this is just four.

And now I can switch over to orange and try something new.

Why not?

I won't make you watch me complete this entire bracelet because it'll probably take me half an hour or longer.

But when you finish it, it might look something like this where we have little stripes.

I also alternated just one of the time at a color, so it makes a cool, stripy effect.

And if you want to, you can tune in again tomorrow.

And I'm going to show how to make a slightly more complex version of a friendship bracelet.

So thank you guys for watching and I hope I see you tomorrow.

>> What a great day at camp.

We hope you had fun with us today.

>> Join us again tomorrow for more activities, learning and fun.

>> Bye.