Encouraged by last year’s good success, Millenium Youth Camp begun this year in June with high hopes from both the young participating scientists and organizers. All together 30 youngsters were selected to the camp from 22 different countries. Six of these students formed the Water group and got a project work: Nanomaterial waste sources and mitigation options. Water group’s enthusiastic young talents were Casey Crownhart (United States), Dušan Krstić (Serbia), Essi Paunisaari (Finland), Domagoj Segregur (Croatia), Anton Tugushev (Russia) and Parth Vaidya (India).
Campers had a lot of activities organized throughout the camp; both fun and work. Kiljava camp site provided a lot of Finnish nature activities like sauna and swimming in the lake while visits to Helsinki University and Aalto University kept the young brains active. They had already started their science project work in May and continued with finishing touches at the camp. We had several tutoring sessions organized for the group; our Water group tutors were Professor Olli Varis from Aalto University, Dr. Olof Norrlöw, Ilkka Pollari, Saku Liuksia and Katja Nemtsinkoff from Kemira.
Tuesday June 14th was an exciting day for the campers as they spent the whole day in cooperating companies, in this case Kemira. The group visited Sappi Kirkniemi Paper mill & waste treatment and got to know Kemira R&D center in Espoo. Students also made some hands-on laboratory work by cleaning waste water by flocculation.
Anton Tugushev, Parth Vaidya, Dušan Krstic, Essi Paunisaari, Henna-Riikka Nissinen (Kemira), Domagoj Segregur, Casey Crownhart
Results of the hands-on laboratory work by cleaning waste water by flocculation: Domagoj Segregur, Dušan Krstic, Essi Paunisaari, Parth Vaidya, Casey Crownhart, Anton Tugushev
During the camp students also got to meet 2010 Millennium Prize Laureate Stephen Furber who gave inspiration for the new generation of future scientist. Official closing ceremony was a Gala evening in Aalto University and all the groups gave presentations and introduced their project posters for the audience. Once again the work amazed the audience by the enthusiasm and fresh new ideas how to help our globe to tackle some of its fundamental problems. After the Gala night there was one more day of visiting Heureka Science Center in Helsinki and farewell party at Kiljava.
Overall the camp was a huge success again. Likeminded active youngsters formed a unified tight group despite all cultural differences and created bridges that will last for a lifetime. Campers described the camp as: “Amazing experience! Extremely interesting to meet people around the world! This camp brings hope to the future! MYCamp became my science family! 10 days of happiness!” Camp spirit was also very high, for example one of the students did not have a computer so all the rest of the campers decided to pitch in and donate money so he could buy one. How amazing is that!
Read more from the official Millenium Youth Camp home page or check out My Science – Discussion Forum for MY Campers.
Text: Katja Nemtsinkoff