High School Students Attend Explosives Camp

Mountain Mail Reports

Nine high school students are learning the science and engineering of explosives at the second annual Explosives Camp at New Mexico Tech this week.
Teenagers from New Mexico, Wisconsin, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas are spending the week in classrooms, laboratories, and field tests with national experts in the field. Each day’s activities begin with a lecture by a prominent instructor currently working in the explosives field.
“In this day and age, the world needs more scientists who understand the basic science of explosives and the finer points of studying energetic materials,” said Dr. Christa Hockensmith, program director. “We launched this program last year because it’s important to develop future explosives’ experts and because the campers are going to have an experience they’ll never forget.”
The intensive camp includes lessons in the history of explosives, the physics and chemistry of explosives, chemistry, instrumentation, blast effects and industrial applications of explosives. On Thursday, the campers take a daylong field trip to a construction company. Students also get plenty of social activities in the evenings, including movies, bowling, swimming, golf and cook-outs.
“These students are going to have incredible amounts of fun,” Hockensmith said. “They will not only get to see explosions, but also they can set them up, detonate them, learn how to evaluate explosives in our chemistry laboratories and find out how to protect buildings.”
Journey Of Hope
A team of cyclists participating in Journey of Hope, presented by KRG Capital, will arrive in Socorro as a stop on their 4,000-mile cycling event across the country to raise funds and awareness for people with disabilities Tuesday, July 6.
The team will be arriving to the Comfort Inn at 2:30 p.m.
Journey of Hope is a program of Push America , the national philanthropy of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity, which raises funds and awareness for people with disabilities. The team will cycle an average of 75 miles per day, a total of 4,000 miles, beginning in Seattle (June 9) and San Francisco (June 13) and ending in Washington, D.C. on August 14.

High School Students Attend Explosives Camp