A Message from Thibaut Descoeudres, Director of St. George’s Summer Camp
Welcome to the latest edition of our camp magazine, dedicated to the remarkable STEAM program at St. George’s Summer Camp. As the director, I am incredibly proud of everything we are achieving together. Our STEAM program, which encompasses Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics, stands as a testament to our ongoing commitment to progress and the continuous development of our activities.
The essence of our camp is innovation and growth, and nowhere is this more evident than in our STEAM initiatives. This program is the brainchild of our ever-inventive Jan, who never runs out of ideas. His relentless drive to enhance our offerings ensures that our campers are always engaged in cutting-edge educational experiences that blend fun and learning seamlessly. Jan’s visionary approach keeps our program dynamic and forward-thinking, making it one of the highlights of our camp.
As the director, my pride extends to the exceptional quality and dedication of our teaching staff. Our educators are the backbone of the camp, bringing a wealth of knowledge, creativity, and enthusiasm to their roles. Their commitment to providing an enriching and supportive environment for our campers is truly commendable. They go above and beyond to ensure that each child is not only learning but also developing a genuine passion for STEAM subjects.
The energy that the children bring to the camp is equally inspiring. Their curiosity, enthusiasm, and eagerness to explore new concepts are what drive us to continually enhance our programs. Seeing their eyes light up during a science experiment, their excitement in tackling a new technology project, or their pride in creating an artistic masterpiece is immensely rewarding. The campers’ vibrant energy and zest for learning are the heartbeat of our camp.
I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in making our STEAM program a success. To our educators, your hard work and dedication do not go unnoticed. To the campers, your enthusiasm and engagement are what make our efforts worthwhile. Together, we are building a community of young minds that are not only equipped with knowledge but also the creativity and critical thinking skills needed for the future.
Here’s to another fantastic summer of learning, exploration, and fun. Bravo to all, and let’s continue to reach for the stars!
Warm regards,
Thibaut Descoeudres Director, St. George’s Summer Camp
Embracing Individuality, Preparing Leaders
Inspired is the leading global group of private schools operating in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, educating over 80,000 students across a global group of more than 110 schools. At Inspired, we believe that enriching educational experiences instil the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and values that set students up for success in life.
Whether your child is with us full-time or for a few weeks over the summer, they will enjoy a new standard in private education with a dedication to excellence permeating every aspect of the experience.
Through innovative, challenging and enriching rogrammes that span academics, performing arts and sports, students leave with lifelong memories, self-confidence and a love for learning.
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Fay Mackman Camps Coordinator
Turning the school into a lab.
The last 6 years Addictlab has been involved in organising and rolling out the STEAM activities at the St George’s International School during the Summer Camps in July and August. STEAM is Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics, but I tend to believe we go beyond that.
Our SDGFabLab at the University of Geneva serves as a research center to build a holistic vision on education. The concept of mixing creative disciplines has been my field of interest for the last 27 years, combing art, fashion, design, technology, sustainability, engineering and more.
Documentation is key.
There is just no discussion: the Sustainable Development Goals need all our attention. We want your kids to be ambassadors for a sustainable future. That’s why our activities are in line with and based on the SDGs.
As part of our educational model, we create magazines. To document best practices, to highlight great ideas, to pass on knowledge. The SDGs have added an important navigation system both through addictlab’s lesson plans as through this SDGzine.
Welcome Day
Months of preparation went ahead of that first Sunday, to make sure that on Welcome Day, both parents and students feel excited, and relieved. For the parents to leave their kids in an inspiring and controlled environment. For the kids to start a journey of discovery and camaraderie, paving the way to new friendships and learning subjects.
art. and wine. Autodidactic artist and crafter.
a coaching degree, subsequently spending three years as a rowing coach at my club’s academies. My hobbies include traveling, engaging in extreme sports, creating with Lego, and enjoying cinema.
A big team for the entire camp. From left to right. Eoghan, Joe, Charis, Katerina, Beatrice, Juliette, Alistair, Tim, Timos, Maxim, Alexia, Thibaut, Mat,Vika, Cristina, Fotini, Magda, Abe, Jan, Panos, Jane
Changing the school into a lab
Not one location for STEAM..., but 10 dedicated spots. Every morning we meet in the Assembly hall, after which all groups go to their respective lab spaces for the day with one of the trained facilitators.
#09 / COMPUTING G
#07 / NATURE LAB N
#01 / ART ROOM
Profiling: We know what we teach, but do we know who we raise?
The Creative Chemistry Table was created 26 years ago by Jan Van Mol when he founded Ad!dict Creative Lab. The aim is to merge creative disciplines, to be inspired by other fields and cultures, and obtain more depth in the creation process.
Through the years leading up til now, Ad!dict Creative Lab or short addictlab, has conducted a large amount of brainstorming sessions, published over 35 books or magazines, and set up ideation processes for companies and organisations from Thalys trains, Lexus, Diesel, the chocolate and design industries, to governments and cities as well as institutions such as the University of Geneva.
Today, the Creative Chemistry table consists of 145 disciplines or human ‘capabilities’, 76 character cards, the 17 sustainable development goals and more. This card set is a concrete package from a proven methodology to allow groups of people and individuals to think out of the box. It’s a unique tool for collective intelligence.
All students of the Summer Camp use these cards to profile themselves. What do they like? How do they see their future? What is important to them personally?
3 boxes.
1. Creative Chemistry cards.
About 145 creative disciplines. Divided into 14 categories, these are fields where we can be creative in. From photography to medicine, from tattoo to government. Categories go from Public Sphere, over Communication to Critical Thinking.
2. Character & profiling cards.
About 50 character cards based on the IB profile (International Baccalaureat). Cards on a person’s character and learner. ‘I am curious’, ‘I like to share’ and more.
3. Sustainable Development Goals cards.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the United Nations for 2030. We added 3 cards for an easy visualisation of the impact you create while designing or having ideas: how will your idea create a positive or negative impact on each of the 17 SDGs? And how can you adapt that idea?
More cards.
Emotion cards.
8 basic emotions cards. Evident to use for personal profiling , but also because our ideas or ideation capabilities will be influenced by current, past or future emotions.
Gender cards.
To allow diverse gender profiling we added ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘other’ genders.
Senses.
5 senses cards adding all 5 senses for future use.
IP Cards.
Currently, the Addictlab Academy is joining forces with WIPO (world intelectual property organisation) to add IP protection, patents and help to protect your ideas to the card set.
STEAM: mixing art with technology
Accelerating talent, one space at the time.
We don’t really know what your kid likes. And maybe she or he doesn’t either. But that’s not really an issue. Then there is more to discover.
The Makerspace
A fab lab (fabrication laboratory) is a smallscale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication.
A fab lab is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make “almost anything”. This includes technologyenabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production.
While fab labs have yet to compete with mass production and its associated economies of scale in fabricating widely distributed products, they have already shown the potential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production.
The fab lab movement is closely aligned with the DIY movement, open-source hardware, maker culture, and the free
and open-source movement, and shares philosophy as well as technology with them.
During the Summer Camp, Addictlab turned the schools dance room into a maker space, and brought in machines and tools that are used in FabLabs all over the world.
The makerspace& fablabspace contains a laser cutter, vinyl cutter, soldering stations, hands on tools to allow smal scale devices, and prototyping.
It is also a place where our students from very young will learn to use an electric saw, screw drivers, and even soldering.
Makerspace Project: recycled bottle cars
All activities are related to the Sustainable Development Goals. So our resources might very well be recycled bottles, or wood, or tissue.
In this workshop students turn a bottle into a fun race car.
#05 / FABLAB
#06/ MAKER SPACE
This game is a lession in diverse skills. The goal is simple: move your device around a metal wire. Touch it, and a buzzer goes off.
#07 /NATURE LAB
It’s basically an electric circuit to construct, but it also involves learning how to strip wire, bend metal,
The older students use soldering as a techniwue to connect the wires. The young ones are going through their first experience
#08 / WASTE LAB
#09 / COMPUTING
#10 / MEDIA LAB
The Art Room
Book binding.
Documentation is key. We want students to learn to draw.. not just for the art sake of it, but also to document and share their ideas. Sketching is an important step in that. ideation process.
So what’s the first lab activity: learn to use the ancient technique of book binding, for each kid to create her or his own sketch book.
1. Material Prep
The first, and easiest step in the book binding process is the titular material prep. Every student selected a minimum of four coloured pieces of A4 paper, which would be folded in half to make a total of 8 pages in the book, Then, these pages
would be aligned with the edge of a piece of A3 card, and secured in place with a binder clip. And so, the notebooks were ready for the next step.
2. Needlework
This step was the most difficult for the vast majority of students because of the nature of it. Still, students persevered. To bind a book’s pages to its cover, three holes are poked through the cover and pages, held by a binder clip for alignment. One in the middle, and two more 5cm above and below. Then, students would thread their needle through all three holes with a back stitch, then tie a double knot to ensure the integrity of their project.
3. Success
Throughout the rest of the camp, students used their own creations to record valuable reflections on classes, helping them to better their STEAM abilities and to recognise their areas that require improvement.
#01 / ART ROOM
#02/ CODING
3r
Bookbinding
#04 / AI & VR ROOM
V r #03 / ROBOTICS 1
This game is a lession in diverse skills. The goal is simple: move your device around a metal wire. Touch it, and a buzzer goes off.
#05 / FABLAB TE_09
It’s basically an electric circuit to construct, but it also involves learning how to strip wire, bend metal,
The older students use soldering as a techniwue to connect the wires. The young ones are going through their first experience
#06/ MAKER SPACE
Mk #07 /NATURE LAB
#08 / WASTE LAB
/ COMPUTING
Lego Printing
Using a linocut technique with lego. This art activity is surprisingly successful.
Imported from South Africa, this activity is creative and mesmerising at the same time. Peel off the pieces you want to colour, then pour on your desired coloured sand.
Make sure not to mix as the coloured sand needs to be recycled!
3Doodler
It’s not plastic, but compostable PLA. Whereas the 3D printer is all digital fabrication creating an object layer by layer, with the 3Doodler it’s up to the students to do it themself. Also layer on Layer.
The Lab
Cyanotype
Cyanotype (from Ancient Greek κυάνεος - kuáneos, “dark blue” + τύπος - túpos, “mark, impression, type”) is a slowreacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300 nm to 400 nm known as UVA radiation.
It produces a cyan-blue print used for art as monochrome imagery applicable on a range of supports, and for reprography in the form of blueprints. For any purpose, the process usually uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate, and potassium ferricyanide, and only water to develop and fix. Announced in 1842, it is still in use.
Students of the Summer camp first prepare the solution and create a canvas. Next, they draw.
The drawing is then copied on a transparant film with black markers.
The drawing is then fixed on the dried canvas. This all happens inside, away from the sun and UV.
Next step: go outside and expose canvas and drawing to the sun. The time of exposure can vary depending on the season, clouds, weather, time of the day. There is testing to be done.
To finish the exposure, all papers need to be washed under running water.
Cyanotype photography
Imported from South Africa, this activity is creative and mesmerising at the same time. Peel off the pieces you want to colour, then pour on your desired coloured sand.
Make sure not to mix as the coloured sand needs to be recycled!
Coding
Imported from South Africa, this activity is creative and mesmerising at the same time. Peel off the pieces you want to colour, then pour on your desired coloured sand.
Make sure not to mix as the coloured sand needs to be recycled!
The Robotics Room
When we do coding or build robots at Addictlab, we implement ‘coding for good’, a way to teach robotics, but with an SDG scenario.
The challenge
There is plastic in the river. Create a device that leaves its base, moves to the plastic, and brings it to the right spot in the recycling area.
Why
This project allows for a mix of creative disciplines needed to solve the challenge
1. collaboration, as students need to work together.
2. ideation & sketching. Draw your device and the functions you want it to have.
3. building. Use the Microbit or Lego Spike boxes to build your device.
4. coding. Now we can code using python or scratch based programming.
5. testing. The moment of truth. Will the robot do what your team wanted? Do you need to adapt the design or the coding, or both?
Daily reflections
What did you learn today? What did you like? What did you not like?
Important moment of reflection everyday. What did we learn? How does it work? These forms also serve as feed back for the facilitation team.
Rewards
Rewards and medals are given at the end of the camp, emphasising creative talent, but more importantly social behaviour, eagerness to learn, willing to help, collaborate.
ST GEORGES SUMMER
Mail info@sdgzine.org for more information or questions.
