- Good morning and welcome to camp.

- I'm Lori.

- I'm Dan.

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

- We have a lot of awesome activities 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 Erica 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, Jen and Isaac.

- Hey, everybody, welcome back to Camp Fowler.

- I'm Isaac.

- I'm Jen.

- And we have our friends, Kyle, Dan and Connor with us.

So this week we are talking about letting go and moving on.

And a really good example of that is a water balloon toss, right?

Because you can't unpop the water balloon.

So we are going to be playing a little bit of water balloon toss and then we're going to talk about it afterwards.

- So is everybody ready?

- Yeah.

- All we're doing is we're just tossing them.

Everyone gets three water balloons per team.

So if you were the first people to, I guess, pop them.

Yeah.

- All right.

- OK.

All right, guys.

- If you guys want to grab.

- OK.

You want to be our water balloon stocker upper?

Looks like Dan is Conner's water balloon stocker.

- And we're gonna start a little bit.

So if Dan and Kyle just move like two steps closer, you guys are going to start off and then Conner just moving stuff up and then you're gonna step back every time.

Ready?

- Every toss?

- Yeah.

- Set back.

- Me, too.

Oh, boy.

Get some distance.

Get over it.

- All right.

Good save.

- We're all in for it.

Oh, no, no, no.

All right.

- All right, we got this.

Nice on a hot day.

- Very durable.

- Some of them.

- You picked a good balloon.

- Move in just a little bit.

- Everyone give a round of applause.

Sorry, for Connor, who got splashed with a balloon.

What about this relates to letting go and moving on?

Water balloon toss?

- Well, there was only so much that we had control over.

It's interesting, too, because I think we were all working towards the same goal.

But even with that, things went differently - for different people.

- Right.

- Connor clearly had a different experience than I had.

Not one of our balloons popped.

- Right.

- But Connor had to deal with the fact that all three of his balloons - popped on him.

- Right.

- So we were playing the same game, but we have a different experience here.

And maybe I'm really hot and I wish one of them popped on me and I have to let go and move on from that.

- Right.

- Maybe he didn't want to get wet and now he has to find a way to let go and move on from that.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

And additionally, like, you can't control what Kyle does.

Connor couldn't control what Dan does.

So if it was like maybe Dan threw it a little too hard or Connor, like, put his hands too hard, nobody can really control anything but themselves.

All right.

So for today's prompt is going to be what are four things that are in and out of your control.

So two things that you know are definitely in your control.

You can always change and impact.

And then two things that are out of your control.

- Really cool.

- So thank you so much.

Have a great day.

We'll see you tomorrow.

- 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.

Hello, kids.

My name is Arland Hotchkiss and I'm with the Boy Scouts and program chair for the Cradle of Liberty Council.

Today, I'm going to talk to you about the chemistry of cooking.

In fact, did you know that some of the best chemists are also very good cooks?

That's true.

And I bet you never thought about what it would be like to cook an onion as far as the chemistry that happens inside that onion.

Well, today, what we're gonna do is cook this onion and see if you can tell, even though this is virtual, what's happening.

But I've got my trusty assistant, Darwin, here, and he's going to talk to you about what it's like to eat the onions at different stages of cooking.

So right now, I have already sliced up an onion and I'm going to put the onion on the griddle here on our camp stove, and we'll start cooking it.

You can hear it starting to sizzle.

And it's actually going through a chemical reaction right now because this heat is actually changing not only the chemical constituents of the Onion, but it's also changing the cellular structure.

When I was cooking these onions a little bit earlier, a lot of people were saying, boy, that really smells good.

And that's because onions contain compounds called thiosulfates.

These are things, you don't have to know what that means, but it's a chemical compound that contains sulfur and it's very volatile.

That means that it evaporates very quickly.

And the process of putting onions under heat makes whatever is volatile in it evaporate even more quickly.

So when you smell onions cooking in the kitchen, whether you're doing it or whether you're helping your parents do it, what you're smelling are those thiosulfates evaporating and then getting in your nose.

And it smells good.

When you actually slice up an onion then there are some other compounds that are called propane sulfates that actually get in your eyes and actually put a little bit of sulfuric acid in your eyes.

So that's why you actually have your eyes water or tear up oftentimes when you're cutting an onion.

So these two chemical compounds are released when you cut and when you cook an onion and actually cause different reactions in your body.

So what we're doing here, again, is changing the chemistry and changing the structure of these onions as we cook them.

So I'll ask Darwin now to first sample the onions that are the raw onions that are completely white.

How do they taste?

- They sort of taste bitter and very juicy.

- OK, great.

So next we have a stage that we call the translucent onion, and it's almost colorless.

Or you can actually, if you hold up the thinnest pieces, you can actually see through it.

So Darwin, could you taste the onions in the middle container.

They sort of taste mushy and the juice has changed - to a more burnt flavor.

- OK.

And then the last one, the last one's actually called caramelization.

And that is actually where the sugars and the carbohydrates in the onion actually change color.

It's a browning reaction called caramelization, the same thing that you do when you make caramel candy.

Go ahead Darwin.

- It's sort of crispy and very burnt flavor, and it still gives you that nice juicy flavor.

- OK, great.

So what's happening here is that not only are you evaporating the sulfur compounds from onions, but you're taking the carbohydrates, which are starches.

Onions are a storage organ that has a lot of starch in it.

And starch is a long chain of many different glucose atoms.

And so when you heat it, that actually hydrolyzes the starch into individual sugars of glucose.

And so what's happening there, I know that Darwin tasted mostly a burnt flavor, but does it taste a little bit sweet, too?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So what happens when you break down a polysaccharide like starch into individual sugars like glucose is you taste a sweeter taste so you don't get the bitter flavor anymore.

So you can try this at home, cook some onions, help your parents cook onions, whatever you want to do.

But this is a great example of chemistry in what you eat.

So please try this.

And thank you very much.

Enjoy the cooking and chemistry.

- That was fantastic.

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

Hey, campers, farmer Erika here once again.

Time to have some fun in the garden.

As you can see, I'm buried underneath all these big, delicious plants.

So in front of you here in the foreground is a tomato plant, actually, four of them, all different varieties from cherry tomatoes, which are really tiny, some juicy big slicing tomatoes and some medium sized ones that are really good for sauce.

But next to me here, I'm going to get ready to harvest some cucumbers.

And if you remember I planted a lot of cucumbers in this garden because I like them.

They're good for me and I love pickles.

So that's one of the things with the cucumber plant, one plant, you might get 50 to 100 cucumbers.

And that's a lot of food.

Can share it with your neighbors.

You can also save some and make some pickles.

So I'm going to teach you guys how to harvest a cucumber.

You look here and see all different big leaves and these little yellow flowers.

So the little yellow flowers is actually where the cucumber comes from, starts as a flower.

If you look closely, then little cucumber buds come from it.

Here's an example right here, a little cucumber beginning.

It's a tiny little baby right here.

So with the cucumber plant, since it's really big and viney, I build the structure to kind of help support it so it stays up off of the ground.

That way, disease and different insects won't get it.

In here I planted two different kinds of cucumbers.

One kind is a miniature white cucumber.

I know, I never knew they existed either, but it's pretty cool.

White cucumbers.

And another one is a pickling cucumber.

I actually picked some already.

Look at the size of this.

This is a perfect size to slice up and make some pickles with or just for a cucumber salad.

So let's get to it.

So first, I have to dig in here and really investigate to find the cucumber.

And if you've noticed, I have a scissors here.

So I'm going to cut the cucumber off the plant.

So it helps it grow and the rest of the plant, keeps it a little healthier.

You could also rip it off with your hands.

But they're kind of delicate.

And if you have a scissors, I'd say that's the best option.

So if I come in here, I hold the cucumber and I gently snip it and leave a little bit of stem on the edge of it.

Just this little bit.

Now, this cucumber's yellow because it's a little bit past its prime.

Since they're supposed to be white, but I'm still going to pick it.

And when I cut inside of it, the only thing it might be is it might be a little seedy.

No big deal.

Let's see if there's some other ones in here.

Oh, wow.

My little scissors here.

Here's another cute little one I found.

Let's see.

All about really exploring because they hide in here.

Oh, here's a good one.

A little one.

I think there's one more for me to find before we go to our next plant over here.

Oh, here we go.

Here's another kind of cucumber.

So I have my harvest basket.

Now in the foreground here, you see all these different leaves, that look a little different than this one.

These are our tomato plants.

Remember the pizza plants?

So if I look in here, I'm going to find that one of them has some cherry tomatoes that are ready.

And the way I harvest some is I just gently pull them off the vine.

Just like that.

I want to make sure that I don't pull too hard because some of the leaves are a little delicate.

Another thing that you can do, if you look at any plants that you have, especially tomato plants, way down the bottom, the leaves that are on the bottom.

Sometimes you can snip them off with your fingers just like this.

And it helps to keep the plant strong.

And also, if you take this leaf off, it's going to put more energy into the other parts of the plant.

OK, so that's a good tip for you to learn there.

Let me do one more check to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I think we're all good.

All right.

I think we're on our way to a really good salad.

But let's see, maybe next time I'll have more things to harvest.

We can make some food together.

See you next time, campers.

- Thanks.

That was great.

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

- Hi, I'm Lynn with Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania.

And this week, we're using our senses to explore nature.

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

So let me ask, have you ever had one of those scratch and sniff books?

Or sometimes they make stickers, you know, where it looks like a banana and you scratch it and you smell it and it smells like a banana?

Well, nature has a lot of scratch and sniff things out and about if you want to go out exploring.

Here is a spruce twig.

This is a great for scratching and sniffing, so I can make a little scratch.

Wow, that smells great.

Yeah.

And here is a plant, this happens to be a house plant.

Not going to scratch it, though, this time I'm going to just pinch it.

Do a little pinch.

Smells like oregano!

That's awesome.

So you can do this scratch and sniff activity outdoors as long as you avoid poison ivy.

We talked about this yesterday.

But let me remind you that poison ivy has three leaves, one in the center with a little bit of a stem and then two right on the sides.

And it can be green or red, smooth on the edges or jagged on the edges.

It varies a lot.

But if you're not sure and it's got three leaves, just leave it alone.

OK?

Don't scratch and sniff that.

It would be bad.

All right.

So now that we know that we're going to do an activity called nature's potpourri.

Do you know what potpourri is?

It's when you get a whole bunch of natural, good smelling things, you sort of mix them all up in a bowl and then you set that in a room and it makes the whole room smell really nice.

Well, we're going to do that, too.

I have a little cup.

This is what I'm going to make my potpourri in.

And we're going to go around exploring and picking little bits of things.

Now, I don't mean ripping whole plants out of the ground.

And also, we want to make sure we don't take something that we shouldn't.

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

I'm going to remind you of it, even though we talked about it yesterday.

It goes like this - pick with a reason in your mind.

For each one you pick, leave nine behind.

Some for beauty, some for seed, someone which wild animals feed.

Two square feet must hold that many.

Otherwise, look, but don't pick any.

So I actually have already been wandering around here at camp and I have collected a whole bunch of things that I like the smell of that I am going to put in my potpourri cup.

The first one here is from a plant called plantain.

It is the little seed from that.

I thought that had a kind of an interesting smell, so I'm going to add that in there.

And while I was at it, I took some leaves from the plantain and we get them out of there.

I ripped them up a little bit to release the smell.

They have a kind of nice fresh smell.

I also collected some grass.

I'm going to put that in there.

And you might not like this.

I love the smell of soil.

So I am going to add a bunch of soil to my potpourri.

And then one more thing.

I have a clover flower here to have just a little, little hint of sweetness.

And there are a ton of clover flowers from where I picked this.

So there are a lot of bees busy, but I didn't deprive them.

OK.

So you put it in there, you mix it up a little bit.

And then.

Oh, that smells great.

It's my nature's potpourri.

And if you want a little extra trick, you could try this, too.

If you have a little bit of water, you could dip your finger, make your nose wet and smell it again because it will smell even more wonderful.

It'll make the smell stronger.

It is no mistake that animals who use their sense of smell, who rely on it like dogs or raccoons, they have wet noses.

That's so that the scent particles will stay around their nose longer and they'll get a better chance to smell everything.

All right.

So that's it for today, everybody.

We'll see you tomorrow.

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 Trail council, Boy Scouts of America.

And welcome back to it's camp.

So far we've worked on the Square knot and the two half hitches, but we're going to go to the next level of knots we teach here in the scouting program.

This one is called the Sheet Bend.

There's a specific reason why the sheet bend is tied the way it is, and it's very important it's tied the right way.

Reason being is that a sheet bend involves two size thicknesses or diameters of rope.

If you tie two ropes of different thicknesses or sizes together and there's force or pull on them, they can actually come apart.

This knot is tied for a specific reason to prevent that.

So I have my rope here.

I made a bite.

Now here is my stationary and this is not moving.

I take the smaller rope and the way this is tied is almost similar to the square knot.

But there's a simple twist to it.

OK, so with the smaller rope, I'm coming through the bite from underneath.

I'm going around it from behind, pulling.

Now this is where things get a little messed up.

Instead of going back down this hole or the bite you came through, you don't want to follow through because then you're actually making a square knot.

This is the simple way to get through the sheet bend.

Take this working end of the smaller sized rope, lift up the rope itself and pull through and you kind of cross itself.

Cinch and pull down.

Now you have the sheet bend.

No matter how much force is pulled on either end this small rope is not slipping out of the bite from the larger size rope.

That's why the sheet bend is so important when tying two different sized ropes.

It's not going to come apart.

And you tie the knot correctly and then you're good to go.

Hopefully this is a little bit more easier.

But it is complex with the way it is tied.

That's all I have for today on it's camp.

We'll see you soon.

Thank you.

Have a good one.

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

- Hi, everyone.

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

And now I got started on an example, but I'll also show you from the beginning but this kind of friendship bracelet is a little bit more complicated than the standard one I showed you guys yesterday.

It involves kind of rows of knots, but I really like this pattern because it makes this kind of natural stripe as you go down.

What we're going to do for this, we're going to use a string of some kind.

I like embroidery floss.

I like to kind of guess about three to four times as long as I think I'll want my bracelet to be.

That way you have enough string as you tie knots.

It gets shorter and shorter and shorter.

For this one I like to double up my string so I'll have two blue strings that I'm working with and I'm going to do that again.

I'm going to grab this lime green color, so I'm going to do that again.

So this whole length is probably four times as long as I need it to be.

And I'm just going to wrap it around.

So I have two of this color now and I will pick the other orange seems nice today.

And again, we wrap it around twice.

So now we'll have six strings to work with instead of just three.

And you can make this as wide as you want.

But if you go much wider than four or five total colors, you might get a little bit frustrated or impatient.

Or maybe that's just me.

But what I'm going to do now, up around the middle where I have all of my strings folded in half, I'm going to tie a knot around my finger.

So I have more like a loop up top.

And again, I'm going to tape my yarn into place.

And what we're going to do today, we're going to take a string and we're going to make a four.

But instead of going all the way around all of my strings, I'm going to just knot around one string at a time.

So I have one straight string.

I have one string making a four.

I'm going to loop underneath with the tail end, going to pull it nice and tight and then slide it all the way up to the top.

And I'm going to do that twice in a row every time.

So I've done that with one string.

And now I'm going to move to another string.

I'm going to pick maybe one of these green ones that I like, and I'll do the same thing.

I'll make two knots here.

And now I'm going to move over to an orange string because it might be nice to have different widths of stripes.

So I don't want everything to be two, two, two.

And again, we're going to do two knots on each string as we go.

If you only do one, your colors kind of get lost as your bracelet builds up.

So now I have finished my first row.

I have knots going all the way across my bracelet and now I'm going to pick up my second string, which I'm just going to start all the way at the left and repeat the process.

So I'm picking up a string, making my four, pulling it up and doing that twice in a row.

So now I've finished another show and I basically just keep going with this.

You'll always know which string to start with on the next row, because it's the one farthest to the left.

This project is a little bit time consuming just because you're making so many knots.

But it has a really cool result.

So I definitely recommend making one of these bracelets and maybe wearing it yourself or sending it off to one of your friends who you missed seeing in person at summer camp.

Thank you guys so much for watching.

I won't make you watch me complete the entire thing because it does take a while.

But again, you can get this cool kind of stripey effect that I've already got going on this original bracelet.

If you guys tune in again tomorrow, I will show you a whole new project, how to make your own version of scratch art papers.

- What a great day.

We hope you had fun with us today.

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

- Bye.