{"id":38898,"date":"2018-06-20T13:34:45","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T18:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=38898"},"modified":"2018-06-20T13:35:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T18:35:20","slug":"38898","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=38898","title":{"rendered":"Summer camps program a recruiting tool for Fort Hays State’s KAMS"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Diane Gasper-O\u2019Brien<\/strong>
\nUniversity Relations and Marketing <\/em><\/p>\n

Changes will abound for the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science at Fort Hays State University when students begin classes for the 2018-19 school year in August.<\/p>\n

Until then, Dr. Jeanne Sumrall and Sherri Matlock can be assured the summer portion of the KAMS operation is being well taken care of.<\/p>\n

Sumrall is taking over as interim director of KAMS for the departing Dr. Roger Schieferecke, and Matlock will be the assistant director in charge of the international piece of KAMS. Several international students have attended the premier high school program on the FHSU campus each year. From now on, they will have their own identity and be known as IAMS.<\/p>\n

Before those 100-plus students converge on campus, the focus this summer is giving prospective KAMS students a taste of life on a university campus.<\/p>\n

Several of the six different sessions normally reach the maximum number of 30 students entering grades 9 and 10.<\/p>\n

While his year\u2019s \u201cWindmills and Gases and Coal: Oh My!\u201d camp featured a small group of six, those half dozen students said they learned a lot while spending four days with Dr. Hendratta Ali, associate professor of geosciences, and Dr. Gary Andersen, assistant professor of advanced education programs.<\/p>\n

Activities in the windmills, gases and coal camp included visiting Greensburg, a small town in south central Kansas that totally rebuilt green after a tornado demolished virtually the entire town in 2007; an ethanol plant, Western Plains Energy, in Oakley; and FHSU\u2019s wind turbine farm and the Akers Energy Center on campus.<\/p>\n

The two teams of three each reached a competitive level as they gave presentations on the last day of a project where they designed a city energy plan. They took turns asking and answering tough questions from the opposing team members.<\/p>\n

Ali squelched any hard feelings among the students, encouraging healthy competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about winning, but about learning,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have all done a good job of thinking on your feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students were all ears the day before when Keith Dreher, director of energy management at FHSU, threw out huge numbers such as 130 feet long (each blade of the wind turbine), 250 feet (height of the turbine tower) and 160,000 pounds (the weight of the box at the top of the turbine that houses the electrical and mechanical components of the turbine).<\/p>\n

One of the most popular camps this summer was the \u201cVEX Robotics and Engineering Design\u201d session in early June.<\/p>\n

Ellie Bultena attended the robotics camp and also returned for the windmills, gases and coal camp, which she said she enjoyed as well.<\/p>\n

Bultena will be a freshman at Sublette High School this fall and said she already is \u201cinterested in attending KAMS\u201d in two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am definitely looking at KAMS as an option,\u201d said Bultena, who learned about KAMS in middle school.<\/p>\n

One of Bultena\u2019s teammates on the city energy plan project was Maya Dorantes, a freshman-to-be at Wichita County High School in Leoti. Dorantes is a returnee to the FHSU campus after two years of attending the university\u2019s music camp annually held the third week of July.<\/p>\n

Dorantes, who plays the French horn, said she plans to be back on campus next month for the 2018 music camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like the campus,\u201d she said. \u201cI’ve liked both the music and (KAMS) camps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each fall semester, KAMS administrators reach out to faculty members in the Peter Werth College of Science, Technology and Mathematics, asking them to submit proposals if they want to teach a camp the following summer. A selection committee goes through the proposals and chooses a variety of six subjects.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the greatest things about these camps is that the students get to work with Ph.D. faculty, and that\u2019s not very common for summer camps,\u201d said Ann Noble, financial administrator for KAMS. \u201cThe professors who choose to teach at these camps get to teach something they are passionate about. It\u2019s fun for them, and it\u2019s fun for the students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noble was part of the administrative team that helped bring KAMS to Fort Hays State in 2009. The summer camps are in their fourth year.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Hammond thought the camps would be a great recruiting tool for KAMS,\u201d Noble said of Dr. Edward Hammond, then president of FHSU. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to bring the students onto campus and let them enjoy campus life during the summer. Give them a taste of what it would be like to come back to KAMS their junior year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Diane Gasper-O\u2019Brien University Relations and Marketing Changes will abound for the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science at Fort Hays State University when students… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38900,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38898\/revisions\/38900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}