These prospective paleontologists are 5-year-olds at the Youth Science Institute's Jurassic Giants camp. This week they all happen to be boys.

One of the week's projects is to make dinosaur eggs: They blow up balloons, encrust the balloons with papier maché (with a bit of help from the class aide) and then, when the plaster is dry, puncture the balloon. Voila ... a dinosaur egg.

They will go fossil hunting on another day's project. They can tell you whatever you want to know about dinosaurs. They remember everything, says their amazed instructor, Saratogan Steve Norton.

But they are, after all, 5, and they don't know if they are about to enter kindergarten or first grade come fall. Nicholas even confided to me that not everything you read about dinosaurs is necessarily true. And these kids are just on day three of the five-day camp.
This is just one of the educational science camps that the Youth Science Institute holds throughout the summer. There are also after-school and Saturday programs held during the school year at three sites. Alum Rock was the first location, in 1953; Vasona Lake County Park was added in 1980; and Sanborn made it three in 1982.

Similar to the Jurassic Giants camp, a Bugology Camp can be found at Vasona, also with kindergartners and first-graders. The instructor, Heather McFarland, shows students a beetle, a tarantula and a millipede. When questions are asked, a dozen hands go up. Many of the children even know the Latin names for the body parts. One child's answers come before the question is fully out of the instructor's mouth.

"Maybe we should change places," the teacher says to Hayden. She is only half joking.

A few yards away older campers, second- to fourth-graders, are studying water and its properties—displacement, solubility—and building rafts to see which designs float best. This camp is called Chemical Curiosities.

The wrap-up of the week comes when the volcanoes erupt (baking soda and vinegar are placed underneath papier maché constructions), and when the Nature Drama Camp presents a short play for the others that they have scripted themselves, costumed as woodland creatures.
YSI targets preschoolers to sixth-graders, with 35,000 youngsters taking classes yearly. Some 1,600 are on board each week for the summer program: that figure includes all three sites. Each weeklong camp is limited to 14 youngsters and runs a half-day each day.

Sign-ups at Vasona go the fastest because the site is the most centrally located. Camps are held outdoors in the summer and as much as possible during the rest of the year. But, like an overgrown adolescent rapidly outgrowing clothes, Vasona could definitely use larger quarters.

The agency has already raised $1.2 of the $4 million needed for a new building. The cost keeps going up as more necessities crop up, added requirements from agencies YSI hadn't figured on originally. The proposed new structure will house an exhibit hall in the first phase.

As funds are raised, two classrooms will be added adjoining that structure. The hall will be built on ground level, but the ceiling will have simulated tree roots coming through to show that the creatures on display live underground. Plans have been in the works for years.

But, because of the economy, most fundraising has been put on hold this past year. As Anne Dunham, executive director of YSI, says, "When operating costs are in jeopardy, you don't plan for capital improvements."
Still, a Dinner in the Dirt fundraiser was held recently at Alum Rock Park, drawing 125 devotees of science, youth and learning. It was a first for the science camp: a catered affair. The price of admission was $125, and it raised more than $10,000.

Events like Dinner in the Dirt will replace the annual Wildlife Run, which has been in existence for 19 years. The board reluctantly decided that the September run was just too labor intensive for its rewards, and the volunteer help just wasn't there.

"We raised the same amount of money in one-tenth the man hours with the dinner," Dunham says.

Though the expansion plans have been shelved for now, the existing building has been overhauled—new windows, new rug, new sink, new fans, new paint. The painting was done by the staff itself. The money for the face-lift was already in place, thanks to a grant, and the deadline for using it was fast approaching.

Dunham has been both an educator and a businessperson, a unique fit for the YSI job. She taught English at Monta Vista High School for 14 years. She then started a restaurant in Saratoga called Annie's, which she ran for five years before receiving a tempting offer and selling. After that she was general manager for a succession of hotel management chains. But the lure of the nonprofit sector exerted a pull, and she answered a blind ad. Thus did the nature lover land at YSI 10 years ago as operations manager. After Dave Johnston left the post of executive director, she took his place.
"They never replaced the operations manager, so I guess I'm both," she says with a grin.

The hardest part of her job is making sure the money is there. Though fortunate in being funded by several different agencies, YSI nevertheless lost $35,000 in county funding this year. And as other funding agencies suffer financial market losses, the sums they provide YSI shrink too.

Fees charged for YSI programs cover only 40 percent of the money needed for operating. The Guild Thrift Shop on Alum Rock Avenue is a boon: Volunteers there raise 8 percent of total operational costs by selling used clothing and other wares. But still, more than half the cost of running the camps remains to be made up somewhere.

For Dunham, the best part of the job is getting so many people of diverse backgrounds working for a common goal. Her board is made up of a dozen people. The two Los Gatans are especially well-known: Vice President Gil Decker, husband of Los Gatos Mayor Sandy Decker; and Ron Lykins, president of the Los Gatos Rotary Club. Linda Walker of Cupertino is president of the board.

During Dunham's tenure, the most dramatic change has been that decline in overnight camping, blamed mostly on mounting costs of insurance and transportation and the increase in parental fears.

"We used to take camping trips for a week to Big Sur or Yosemite," Durham says. "Now we have one overnight in Sanborn. We're a long way from the days when youngsters could ride their bikes to the orchards for the day to play."

Nowadays, when families do sign up for overnights, some parents bring RVs up to Sanborn and insist that their kids spend the night inside the vehicle. It's a sad commentary on our fearful times, Dunham laments.

Bonnie LeMat, YSI's education director, is another educator who is a linchpin of the operation. She, too, was a classroom teacher—of science—before settling into her niche at YSI.

"I hire between 40 and 50 teachers per year," LeMat notes. "We used to think of it as a detriment—always having to hire new teachers for the summer, a constant turnover. Now we realize how valuable that is, what we are able to provide. What better training can future teachers get than working and teaching at YSI?"

YSI hires 40 aides each summer, starting at age 14. Many go on to become instructors, like Bonnie's daughter, Kira LeMat Spindler. Kira will be teaching the Something Fishy program this summer.

Mountain climbing professional Jim Williams, a native Saratogan, credits YSI with giving him a giant boost into his life's work. He was a YSI instructor in his earlier years. Rep. Mike Honda was a camp counselor at YSI in the summers of his youth.

A driving force in the early days of YSI was Larry Moitozo, its first executive director. Moitozo was a beloved teacher and naturalist who lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains and died a few months ago. Former director Dave Johnston, who teaches at Santa Clara University and is a noted authority on bats, still teaches the bat unit at YSI.

One of the most popular courses is Bike Hike, led by Sharon Allen of Saratoga. The astronomy/geology section—Deep Earth, Deep Space—is taught by Los Gatan Diana Churchill.

Ken Sakoi is the education coordinator and has taught every course offered in his six-year tenure. He has a master's from the University of Hawaii in agricultural and natural resource economics. Sakoi thought he'd try out teaching, starting at YSI. But the starting point became the goal.

Teaching at YSI is "informal, flexible, creative, a lot of fun," Sakoi says. He fondly remembers teaching Something Fishy and watching the excitement of 8-year-olds as each one concentrated while reeling in that first fish. The best times in his job, of course, are when "everything seems to mesh and it's a good learning experience."

But the absolutely best part of her job, Bonnie LeMat says, is hearing the laughter of children and teachers every day.

This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly Times July 30th 2033.