School kids spend a holiday at a special Tulsa day camp

When schools take a holiday, many working parents have to scramble to find a safe place for their kids to spend the day. <br/><br/>The Tulsa Air and Space Museum runs a special day camp for kids on those

Monday, February 21st 2005, 10:22 am

By: News On 6

When schools take a holiday, many working parents have to scramble to find a safe place for their kids to spend the day.

The Tulsa Air and Space Museum runs a special day camp for kids on those holidays. News on 6 reporter Rick Wells found them exploring life on other planets.

The kids are creating aliens; each group gets a pile of stuff, glue, tape, a balloon and lots of craft materials. Tulsa Air and Space Museum executive director Katheryn Pennington: "What we want them to do is use there imaginations." They work as a team to create whatever they want. There are some specific parameters, it must be able to breathe and move around. Be protected from extreme heat and cold and be protected from mars' huge dust storms. "Everybody, I want you to look for just a minute." Judy Adair is the museum education director; each group gets to make a presentation on its project.

Taylor Wise is the group leader. "It's protected by the sun by its shirt and from the cold by its scarf." It has an air tank and they drew on some goggles for the sandstorms. Meanwhile next door the other half of the day campers are on the flight simulator computers.

The staff says since they started these day camps five years ago more of the participants are girls. Katheryn Pennington: "We wanna tell little girls that it's ok to learn math and science, that it's cool."

Leah Boggs is flying her plane to McDonalds for what else. "Hamburger." I guess, in her world McDonalds now has a "fly-thru". Girls they tell us are more disciplined flyers; the boys are much more aggressive pilots, a lot of stunt flying.

These one-day camps are for kids from 1st thru 4th grades. The museum has two-day camps scheduled during spring break week, March 22nd and 23rd.

You can find more information on the museum's web site.