Inspiring youngsters at museum's camp

The Cradle of Aviation Museum covered “The Eras of Aviation” at their summer camp last week.

Campers ages 9 to 11 spent five days learning about the different eras of air and space, starting with the earliest ideas of flying before airplanes were invented and fast-forwarding to the space age.

“[The] kids find these things super interesting and they gain so much from being here,” Victoria Ferguson, public programs coordinator for the museum, said. “It’s a really unique opportunity.”

Ferguson, along with museum educator Anne Baranello, ran a week full of lessons and crafts for the 19 boys spanning across a wide variety of aviation topics.

Friday, the final day of the camp week, was Space Day, a day centered on all things space. Campers built “lunar modules” out of different materials, including cardboard, paper plates and tin foil, to replicate the spacecrafts that go to the moon.

They put eggs inside their modules, and the goal was to build safe enough structures that the eggs don’t crack after being dropped from the second floor of the museum. Out of nine total modules, seven successfully protected their eggs.

The boys also launched rockets outdoors. Each rocket came with engines and starters, and with the press of a button, each camper shot their rocket up almost 300 feet.

“When we did the crafts, we learned a lot about science and aviation,” Skyler Zorio, 10, said. This was his second year taking part in the weeklong camp.

“It’s really fun,” he added. “I suggest a lot of other people should start doing it too.”