Staff photo / R. Michael Semple
Wyatt Hillier, 9, of Cortland, left, receives a little help digging for buried sea items in a pool of sand from Noelle Barnes of Bristol, 4-H Agriculture & Natural Resource Educator, during the Trumbull County 4-H STEM “Under the Sea” program Thursday morning at the Trumbull Agriculture & Family Educational Center in Cortland. The one-day camp was for students in grades 3 through 5. A session Tuesday was for students in grades kindergarten through 2.

The theme for this year’s camp was “Under the Sea” with 20 kindergarten to second graders participating Tuesday and 20 third to fifth graders participating on Thursday.

Ashlee Meardith, 4-H youth development extension educator, said the summer program has been held for more than 10 years and is a way to have children spend time taking part in various hands-on educational and fun activities before they return to school.

For one activity called “float your boat,” children worked in pairs or threes and were given five minutes to make a small boat or raft that they then placed in a child’s swimming pool to see if it floated and continued to float when pennies were placed on it, creating more weight.

Meardith said children learn to use science, math, engineering and technology skills.

She said each summer is a different theme, with past years being nature, space, the five senses and weather.

“This offers the children a chance to meet new people, network with other children, team building and brainstorming together. We hope their creative abilities will shine through on what they do,” Meardith said.

She said children receive short lessons such as what creatures live in the different layers of the ocean and what adaptations sea creatures have to make to live in the water. They then did a watercolor sea turtle and shell craft using different materials.

For a treasure hunt relay, children had to dig through piles of sand in sandboxes to find seashells, gems and other items and then made an ocean with small waves inside a bottle.

Siblings Owen Petrunia, 7, Reid Petrunia, 9, and Quinn Petrunia, of Cortland, worked together to make their boat.

“We knew we needed to make the boat light and sturdy so it would float,” Reid said.

Robert Krepps, 8, of Brookfield, said when building his boat, he made sure to pull the sides upward.

Addyson Price, 9, of Bristol, said she liked painting a sea turtle and learning how the turtles and other sea creatures survive at different levels of the ocean.

The Ohio State University Extension provides funds for the program. Volunteers, which include teachers, as well as extension staff, help with the program.