Some Calgary kids are turning out some colourful creations at a summer camp this week.
They’re busy making their own natural dyes at the Spark Science Centre, using veggies like beets and cabbage as their raw materials.
“We want you guys to be able to figure out where the dyes that you have in all your clothes and stuff come from,” counsellor Kanga Switzer said. “Because back in the day, they didn’t have man-made dyes. They had to find stuff like this.”
It’s one of the activities in a camp that’s something new for the Science Centre – the first time they’ve offered one that’s only for girls – and it’s going over well with the campers.
“In the olden days, girls always had to stay home and the boys went off to school and learned science,” eight-year-old Olivia Dansereau said. “But now they’re encouraging it to be girls learning science, too.”
The girls are looking forward to using their dyes to colour sheep wool, hoping to take it home to make scarves and blankets.
The science centre will be offering another “girls only” camp in August, and similar camps are also available this summer at the University of Calgary.