St. Regis art camp utilizes recyclables

ST. REGIS – Part of the summer arts camp for kids in St. Regis is instilling more than just an appreciation of the visual arts in their students.

Last week’s portion of the summer long camp was called Junkyard Wars and the purpose was to teach the kids there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to common household items.

Materials that would likely have been discarded were put to use in a variety of ways teaching the kids a wide array of disciplines including science, physics, engineering and problem solving.

On Wednesday, July 30, the goal was to build a structure out of raw materials that would hold a certain weight and number of figurines. Campers had only minutes to build a contraption as high as they could. It also had to support the required weight.  

Camp Counselor Laura Jarvis said the exercise taught the students valuable lessons they could put to use in the coming school year.

“It’s recycling week at camp so today they are building a structure that is strong and tall,” Jarvis said. “Whoever has the strongest and tallest (structure) will win. There are seven teams that were given various items and they have to build a structure that is totally up to them.”

Jarvis said besides learning how to problem solve, the campers were learning that things they might have initially thought of as garbage may in fact be useful. She said the goal is to impress upon the campers not everything belongs in the trash.

“It’s a way to use recycled material,” Jarvis said. “We are trying to increase awareness about things that end up in the garbage. We want them to see the amount of waste that people produce and find other ways to use that waste instead of throwing it in the dumpster.”

Two of the older camp helpers said the reason they wanted to help out was a desire to see kids learn. Emma Hill and Shelby Melin both said seeing kids learn new skills was why they chose to spend their precious summer break with the camp.

“Today they are taking junk and turning it into something they can use,” Hill said. “I like working with the kids and helping them learn and grow in math and science.”

Melin said watching the kids utilize their newfound skills was why she wanted to help out the camp.

“I like working with children,” Melin said. “I like seeing how they can grow and use the skills they learn here. They can use them in life or here at school or at home or even at a job someday.”

All of the teams that competed in the Junkyard Wars portion of the camp successfully constructed structures that held the required weight. The structures were made  out of cardboard boxes, tubes, CDs, paper cups and other material.