 One of the reasons we go to space is not just to learn about the stars and other planets, but to look back down at the Earth. In a way, your training at Camp Seahawk is a lot like the training of astronauts. You're going to build a team and explore a new planet in a way because you're going to see spaceship Earth with new lenses. Discovering spaceship Earth with new lenses is the main focus of the Space Earth Ocean Center camp, Seahawk for short. Teacher and space finalist Peggy Laughlin described Seahawk to the newly arrived campers. During the introduction, the students begin to realize they are in for an exciting week-long adventure to learn about space, the Earth, and the ocean. Located at the Armand Bayou Nature Center near Houston, Texas, Seahawk operates for six weeks during the summer. Seahawk's environmental awareness curriculum is the basis for the camp's lessons that are taught in the fields, forests, and waters of Armand Bayou. Activities are designed to instill a new appreciation of Earth's finite resources as well as develop a sense of team spirit among these future scientists, astronauts, and even educators. Seahawk director Steve Russell comments on the camp's formation and goals. So with a consortium of Armand Bayou Nature Center, Clear Creek Independent School District, Johnson Space Center, and the University of Houston, the four institutions work together to develop this program. Our program involves studying ecology, ocean science, weather, space studies, and we try to teach environmental awareness and hopefully talk some of these bright youngsters into careers in environmental science. Using the space theme, the campers are divided into groups that parallel the size of space shuttle crews. Each crew designs a patch reflecting their mission goals at Seahawk, using actual mission patches from past space flights as a guide. Look out Red Lobster, here we come. Discovering the inhabitants of the local waters enhances the ocean related studies taught at the camp and provides hands-on experience not readily available in the classroom. I don't think you like it. The male has a rocket ship type shape here. See that? You can even take one of his legs here and start to pry it up and that's what you do whenever you're opening them up to get them ready to eat. Just pull that one down. Seahawk counselor Rob McClelland. I think that that learning is most important when it is hands-on. Saining is about as hands-on as it gets and the saining net is two long poles. The net, fine mesh and that in between, they learn how to use that themselves. They get a little bit of instruction in this trial in there. It's fascinating the stuff that they bring up and to watch their faces light up, you get shrimp in there, silversides, every kind of little fish or organism just about you can imagine. That's an alligator gar? No. I can't, you can't really tell when they're that young. Oh, there's another one there. It's like big. Somebody got this. Yeah, that's a nice size shrimp. Discovering the makeup of water is the purpose of conducting pH comparisons. Here the children learn the difference between swimming and drinking water by determining the pH content of each. Oh, then we know that the pH has to be more than what number? What number is on there? That's the last number. This marshy area at Armand Bayou was chosen to conduct plankton studies. Each group uses a plankton net for skimming the surface of the water to collect microorganisms living in the water. Back at the campsite the organisms will be examined and identified under microscopes. Canoing on Armand Bayou is one of the many highlights during each Seac session. The activity builds a sense of team effort as well as involves the campers in a new type of water sport. They can look over like a continent like half the size of Africa and they can tell which parts of it are warm and which parts of it are not so warm or colder. The students also see the ocean elements from the perspective of living in space. Seac director Steve Russell ties together space exploration with earth exploration during his earth observation presentation. That phytoplankton or the microscopic plants use to make food. Okay, right now the Soviets have a satellite or a space station up in space in orbit around the earth and they're tracking where the phytoplankton is growing the most and that's where they send their fishing fleet. You don't have to spend a lot of money running a ship going out looking for fish you know exactly where to go and I'm sure that when the United States when we get our space station up we'll use it for the same purposes. Other space related activities include touring the Johnson Space Center located nearby. The students observe space technology up close from past, present and future space endeavors. Moreover, the campers develop an understanding of the technology that is involved in spaceflight and how the astronauts work in space to bring back new data for earth scientists. To practice loading and storage and cooking on the shuttle. Now look at this trainer. Scheduled for the end of the tour is a demonstration of the suits worn by astronauts during their space walks. The kids also get to examine the different suit parts up close and even try some on. Astronaut Lauren Shriver shares his experiences and knowledge of earth observation from space with the campers. Each week a different astronaut visits Siak to discuss earth science through spaceflight with the kids. And get a very good perspective of what's happening down on the ground. We spend an awful lot of time looking back at the earth and seeing what the rivers are doing, seeing if there's any changes in the sizes of lakes of forest areas that cover the mountains and the jungle areas and things like that. How beautiful that setting is there. Superman, huh? One of the things that we're interested in finding out is how easy it is to assemble structures in space. And we've had several experiments that deal with that. This thing came, was carried up. Exploring the forests and prairies expands the campers awareness of different plants and animals living in the area. Staff teacher Sue Cox describes the alphabet hunt activity. I used it with these children was to have them list the alphabet in their journal and then as we began our forest activities we stopped along the way and we identified trees and flowers and any other objects that they saw that started with one of the letters of the alphabet. They then listed this name in their journal. It produces like grapes. It makes real good jelly. I think we can find some other ones a little bit further down where we can see them better. Think about the red man, Indians, associate that with red oak. What did the Indians use as weapons? Error heads or spears. Were those error heads or spears pointed or rounded? Pointed. Pointed, okay. Look at the tips of the arrows. Are these pointed or rounded? Pointed. Is it a red oak or a white oak? Red oak. Exactly. This one belongs to the red oak family. Tired enough? Yeah. Too tired. The hungry tree activities were designed to have the students develop an awareness of a tree by going over to the tree blindfolded after they were led thereby a partner. They then were to feel the tree using any of their senses except the sense of taste. They could smell it. They could feel it. They could listen to it. They could rub the bark. They could reach down and feel the root system or the leaves or whatever part they wanted to experience. Then they were led away and then unblindfolded the object was then to be able to go back and find their tree. The camper's explorations are not just above ground. Digging for Indian and other archaeological finds native to the area proves there are many treasures below the earth's surface and a little imagination adds a lot to each successful excavation. What grade square? Each person more knowledge. Excellent. Okay. Would they take it? Okay. The right side first. One, two, participation in the challenge course activities. The kids develop problem solving skills as well as learn to work effectively as a group and build trust within the team. Get everybody from this side to that side. Now they are count the holes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen holes. You can use each hole one time and you can use one of the holes, one of them twice. And you have to grab it from him. You just close your arms and say okay. Cross your arms. Okay. One second. Let's take your glasses off. Okay. Yeah, really? Can you see without them? She didn't need to see the ball. All right. Close your eyes anyway. Yeah. Okay. Now move a little to the left. Uh-oh. A little back feet together. Body stiff. Don't go yet. Everybody's ready? No, I'm not. No, I am. Count. Make your body stiff as a board. Does she really trust her crewmates for the log fall? Just barely. Roasting marshmallows, singing songs and listening to ghost stories are great campfire activities that everyone enjoys. Born in Italy, if you were rich. Following the last campfire, the young explorers receive a visit from a man whose scientific contributions from centuries ago sparked many of man's scientific achievements. So who am I? Right. I'm an inventor, a scientist, an artist, and a mathematician. I'm the father of botany. I drew pictures of all sorts of plant life. And so as you go through this camp this week, you have seen everything relating in all the sciences as they all work together. After describing his contributions to science, Leonardo guides the campers in molding plaster casts of the face and hands, like his human organ casts he made for study centuries ago. Now, if you've got little brothers or sisters that talk too much, this is what you might want to do. You might want to start with this part first. You're my guinea pig. You have to lie still. They get to giggle if they think it's fun. Don't forget, don't do their nostrils. All right. By week's end, the campers have not only earned their SEAC t-shirts but have gained a greater awareness of their surroundings. The community sees this program as an asset to our community. SEAC director Steve Russell shares his overall thoughts. The environmental awareness that we're promoting can can only help the community in the future. These students that are here at this program will be the scientists of the future and they'll be the ones who'll be making decisions on how we use our natural resources and how we hopefully use all of our environment rather than abusing it. I'd like for the students to go away with the knowledge that there has been space technology developed by the space program that can be used to gather much more information about our earth system and to use that information to improve the quality of the environment and hopefully to learn more how the earth works so we don't continue to make ecological or environmental mistakes. SEAC's focus on the environment through a variety of observation techniques will serve these explorers in their travels through life here on spaceship earth.