US Air Force Academy Youth Center
August 1, 2023
We were so excited to bring CaveSim back to the US Air Force Academy Falcon Trail Youth Center! The kids loved the program!
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We were so excited to bring CaveSim back to the US Air Force Academy Falcon Trail Youth Center! The kids loved the program!
Great Basin National Park is now the proud owner of a new CaveSim system. The mobile cave contains 117 feet of highly-realistic cave passage with over 90 speleothems, artifacts, and cave critters. We have great pictures, videos, and a photo tour of the new cave at cavesim.com/projects-and-installations/GRBAmobilecave/.
We had such fun at Timpanogos Cave National Monument! Visitors had a blast learning about vertical caving on our tower, and they loved exploring the mobile cave. Even the rangers got in on the fun, and we got some great photos from the event.
Above, National Park Ranger Jake shows off his skills in the CaveSim squeezebox.
Below left, a boy is excited to learn how to climb rope using ascenders with help from CaveSim’s lead educator Dave Jackson. Below right, a family of adventuresome explorers.
Great photos by Scott Crabtree (Grand Junction Daily Sentinel) of our program at the EUREKA! museum.
We’re excited to be at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo this summer. We got to the zoo on July 8th, and we’ll be here every day until August 4th. Look for us by the carousel!
We’ve just finished 11 days of CaveSim programs in South Dakota, including two days at Pactola Lake US Forest Service visitor center, two days at Jewel Cave National Monument, a day at Wind Cave National Park, a day at Custer State Park, and five days at the NSS Convention.
PreK – 8th grade students at Winchester Christian Academy had a wonderful time exploring CaveSim and learning about science and engineering during a two-day program. Thank you so much to the teachers and administrators at this awesome school for allowing us to teach the program!
During a 2-day program at Creative Montessori School in Birmingham, AL, 1st – 8th grade students had a blast exploring CaveSim. The older students participated in science experiments using working carbide lamps, as well as with a special high-pressure carbide lamp designed and built by CaveSim inventor Dave Jackson. The students learned about conservation of matter, exothermic reactions, density, and measurement concepts like significant digits. Students also learned physics concepts on the CaveSim vertical caving tower, and practiced teamwork and communication skills using the cave rescue stretcher.
Our programs are back in full swing with events across Texas and in Oklahoma City. In the past two weeks, we’ve had ten great days of programs for elementary and middle schools in the Austin area, as well as public events in Dripping Springs, Cibolo, and Leander. We also made it out to Mendard, TX for a multi-day caving community event. We hope to see you at Science Museum Oklahoma this coming weekend, or in San Marcos, TX next week! Here are just a few pictures from our many recent events.
We’re excited to announce that CaveSim staff and volunteers have received the COVID vaccine, and we have resumed in-person CaveSim programs at school in several states. Last week, the mobile cave was in Jackson, Mississippi for a 4-day program for 6th and 7th graders at Jackson Academy. In addition to exploring the mobile cave, students learned about physics on the 12-foot CaveSim tower, practiced teamwork with our Skedco stretcher, learned about bats with high-energy games, and practiced math skills while squeezing through the CaveSim squeezebox. Students also did numerous hands-on labs, including the flashlight engineering lab and the slime mold biology lab.
We also recently deployed CaveSim to Aurora Hills Middle School for an after school program for low-income students. The students loved the program, and several students used harnesses and ascending gear to climb the 12-foot ropes tower.
Over the past six weeks, we’ve done 12 days of online programs for elementary and middle-school students in Colorado and Texas. We’ve worked with as many as six classes per day, and the online classes are aligned with the curriculum that teachers are covering. The programs include hands-on labs that students can do with simple household materials, and cover a wide range of science topics, including physics, chemistry, biology, and earth science. Some of the programs have been conducted in both English and Spanish, and all programs help students with math and language skills.
We were so excited to work with about 40 5th grade students today. The students learned about chemistry through exciting demonstrations with carbide lamps and a hands-on lab with acids and bases. This was the first in a series of 8 lessons for 4th and 5th grade, and is supported by a grant from First Tech Federal Credit Union. We had two classes of students in the classroom, plus quite a few online learners. Thank you to Vinessa at Centennial Elementary for collaborating with us on this program.
“I am so honored to have received the 2020 Mayor’s Young Leader Award in the category of Creative Industry for my work with CaveSim. Congratulations to all of the finalists and winners in all six categories! Thank you so much to the amazing staff at the Colorado Springs Mayor’s Office, and to Mayor John Suthers for lifting up our community by highlighting the work that young professionals are doing to make Colorado Springs a exceptional place.” Dave Jackson
A message from Mayor Suthers:
The quality of work presented by this year’s Mayor’s Young Leader Award finalists was exceptional. I am consistently pleased with the young professionals who are serving Colorado Springs across all industries and am grateful for their contributions to strengthening our community. The 2020 winners are fantastic representatives of Olympic City USA, and I look forward to following their future success.
Congratulations to the six winners and all of the finalists!
• David Siegel, Bee Vradenburg Foundation – Community & Economic Impact
• David Jackson, CaveSim – Creative Industry
• Dr. Carole Frye, Colorado Springs School District 11 – Education
• Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Parks, U.S. Air Force – Military Leader
• Timothy Corner, Man 2 Machine – Sports & Wellness
• Rodney Gullatte Jr., Firma IT Solutions and Services – Technology & Sustainability
We did 4 1-hour lessons for 7th grade students in Mrs. Hampton’s class today. The students had a great time with hands-on chemistry experiments involving safe household acids and bases. We also used carbide to teach the students about exothermic reactions, conservation of matter, states of matter, and the ideal gas law. We were able to seamlessly work though internet connectivity issues by utilizing our recorded lessons for one of the four classes. The students are learning about the metric system, so we used our gram balance to help students get familiar with metric mass measurements.
4th grades in Ms. Espinosa’s class learned how caves form with exciting hands-on geology labs. We worked with this great school last semester, and we’re excited to be invited back for a series of classes for 4th and 5th grade.
This was our 2nd hour-long program for the Adventure Caravan Virtual Camp in Virginia. Girl Scouts in grades 6-8 (plus a few in elementary school) learned about geology, groundwater conservation, and cave biology. The girls got to do a variety of hands-on activities with simple materials that they gathered at home.
Pinnacle Charter School had so many 4th & 5th grade students enrolled in their summer program that we did two back-to-back 90 minute classes! The students learned about the physics of vertical caving (with hands-on at-home experiments as well as demonstrations on our 12′ caving tower). We also did combustion experiments with carbide lamps to demonstrate numerous chemistry concepts, including exothermic reactions, conservation of mass, and states of matter. The students also learned about waves and energy, and got to make their own simple phones.
This was our first hour-long program for the Adventure Caravan Virtual Camp in Virginia. Girl Scouts in grades 6-8 (plus a few in elementary school) learned about the physics of vertical caving with demonstrations on our 12′ vertical caving tower. The girls got to do a variety of hands-on activities with simple materials from home.
During our live online class, a 4th grader asked, “Why are you so cool?” Dave’s reply: “I haven’t always been cool. I used to sit behind a desk all day. But I figured out that if you do what you love then you’ll love working. When you’re excited about what you do, other people get excited. You can do that too.”
CaveSim designs, builds, and uses interactive caves to teach kids about conservation and science. We believe that kids who know better become adults who do better.