Lawrence History Camp

Submitted by Barbara Brown on Tue, 07/20/2010 - 15:00

The LHC and the Lawrence Community Day Charter Public School are sharing the 6th season of the History is What You Are Doing Now Summer camp for Lawrence 7th and 8th graders. The theme of this year's camp is Green in the Middle - exploring the history of energy in Lawrence. The camp runs every weekday from July 6 through July 22, 2010.

The camp, led by Charley Easley of the CDCPS, and Barbara Brown of LHC is a three week experience that includes field trips, primary research with LHC resources and a final project about the campers' process and their discoveries. The campers are Rowil Thomas, Ciara McKinney, Marcus Jimenez, Germaine Lebron, Waleska Velez, Luis Esmurria, Alexa Rizzo, Runairy Infante, Sean Jimenez, Kevin Velez, Dale Moquete, Ivan Geromino.

Field trips include viewing an active Taylor lumber mill in Derry New Hampshire, Robert Frost's farm in Derry, trash to energy plant at Covanta in Haverhill, Lawrence Great Stone Dam, canals and factories and the Lawrence Heritage State Park.

One group investigated early engineering. The students researched Essex Company engineering records, drawings, and images to understand water power engineering and the use of mill powers.

A second group researched the first generation of factories on the island - date built, owners, products produced. They utilized early atlases, city directories and financial records of the Essex Company archives.

The Camp's final project is a power point of the process used for research and discoveries they made. A 3 -D scale model of the island as it was in the 1850's using Google's Sketchup is also part of the final project.

The group presentation will be held at the Lawrence Heritage State Park on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 10:00 am. Everyone is welcome!

Two bonus field trips are scheduled:
* Lowell National Park on Friday July 23.
* Prep at Pingree Summer Camp. With an invitation from Steve Filosi , Director of Prep at Pingree in Hamilton, MA, our summer camp will share their results with the Prep at Pingree Summer Camp on Tuesday July 27, 2010.