It’s fun and a great learning experience. This summer immerse your child in the exciting world of oceans and ocean exploration at Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI).

There’s hands-on fun learning with labs, experiments, specimens, videos, scavenger hunts, competitions, interactive computer activities and so much more.

BUEI’s camps are for children aged seven to 13 and run from 9am to 3pm from Monday to Friday. After camp supervision is available from 3pm to 5pm.

Camp dates are:

July 7 to 11: Dabble in Sea Myths, Sea Serpents & Superstitions

July 14 to 18: Dabble in Prehistoric Seas

July 21 to 25: Dabble in Dissection

July 28 to 30: Dabble in Pirates

August 4 to 8: Dabble in Bermuda

August 11 to 15: Dabble in Sharks

August 18 to 22: Dabble in Sea Myths, Sea Serpents & Superstitions

August 25 to 29: Dabble in Wild Weather

Dabble in

Sea Myths, Sea Serpents & Superstitions:

Delve in the interesting world of ocean mythology, sea legends, sea monster sightings and seamen’s superstitions. Ever since mankind began exploring the sea, fantastical tales were told. From mysterious sea serpent accounts, ghost ship discoveries, sinking of Atlantis and the calling of the Sirens, students explore the facts and fiction behind past legends and folklore. What was their basis?

Using hands-on activities, educational websites, accounts of survivors and videos, students become myth busters as they enter the realm of Greek mythological gods and tales such of Jason and the Argonauts and Sinbad the Sailor and the seven seas.

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Prehistoric Seas:

This five-day educational camp starts at the birth/creation of Earth more than four-and-a-half billion years ago. Travelling through simulated time, students get up close and personal with the variety of life in the savage prehistoric seas ranging throughout the geological time scale. Through videos, computers, fossil labs, and other unique hands-on activities, students learn about the dominant inhabitants of each period, what survived and what caused major extinctions, and where Bermuda fits into the scheme of the prehistoric seas. Students will make casts of some key marine fossils such as mosasaur teeth, ammonites, and trilobites, as well as excavate, analyse and interpret real fossil remains like palaeontologists.

Dabble in Dissection:

A five-day educational camp introducing six very different unique invertebrate creatures: sponge, hydra, segmented worm, clam, sea star and crayfish. Students learn how special and well adapted these creatures are to their environment and the important role they play in the ocean. As they get up close and personal to each specimen they are taught safe and correct lab skills utilising microscopes and dissecting tools. An overview is given of each organism’s phyla inclusive of alerting the students of the related dangerous or venomous members. Due to the nature of this camp, students must be aged nine to 13.

Dabble in Pirates:

This three-day educational hands-on camp dwells in the realm of piracy as it deals with the different types of pirates, the most famous ones, and the pirates that were involved with Bermuda’s early history. From the past days of the Spanish Main and the Barbary Coast to today’s pirate havens of the world, students have fun as they are immersed in the pirates’ code of conduct, shipboard life, jolly rogers, gold doubloons, and pieces of eight. Among the many camp activities are ‘Divide the Booty’ and ‘How Did the Pirate Ship Sink?’, where students work with real artefacts and treasures, as well as play an authentic pirate game of chance. The camp culminates with the students having an opportunity to compete as they dress as their favourite swashbuckler.

Dabble in Bermuda:

This five-day educational camp focuses on the beautiful waters and their relationship to a unique, special island: Bermuda! Utilising hands-on activities and videos, students learn about Bermuda’s violent birth, its past based on ancient submerged cedar forests, marine fossils and its geological future. From a shipwreck-caused inhabitation to 17th century maritime Bermuda and finding out what hardships the first settlers endured. What were some of the most famous and valuable shipwreck finds? Students paint their own Teddy Tucker Cross cast replica and receive their own micro-palaeontological slide, collect their own micro-critters and make their own sand collections. From whales, sharks, seashells, jetsam, Sargasso Sea and the Bermuda Triangle, students learn about the mysteries of Bermuda, its beaches and surrounding ocean.

Dabble in Sharks:

“Sharks”, a word that will make you scramble out of the water when at the beach, is the focus of this five-day educational camp. The camp will cover everything one needs to know about sharks from current shark research, shark conservation, shark attack behaviour, sharks past and present and the importance of the Sargasso Sea to some sharks’ reproduction. It will entail an in depth dissection, identifying various prehistoric shark teeth, painting large 3.5 inch cast, Carcharodon megalodon teeth, and constructing a take-home six-gilled shark beanie baby.

Dabble in Wild Weather:

From mega-hurricanes, super storms, multi-vortex tornadoes to derichios, haboobs, and huge storm surges, this five-day camp immerses the students into the causes, effects and impacts of global warming. Through incredible videos, hands-on activities, and realistic computer interactives, students engage in the understanding of the global changes, meteorological related events and catastrophes occurring in the environment. Students learn what they can do about it, to mitigate as well as prepare for the possible impacts to Bermuda. Camp participants make and test, in a lab and outdoors, their own take-home UV light detecting bracelets. The motto is — “Don’t be scared, be prepared!”

To be eligible for camp enrolment, the applicant must be a family member or higher. For prices and more information visit www.buei.org or call 294-0207.