The 2022 Nuclear Medicine and Science Camp: Two extraordinary K-12 educators come together to offer campers a fabulous experience.

Denise Newsome (left) and Chelsea Holloway (right) preparing in June for last week’s Nuclear Medicine and Science Camp.

I have known for many years that the very best K-12 teachers combine extraordinary skill, empathy for their students and a sort of magic that I cannot even begin to understand.

Last week, that combination was on full display during the 2022 Nuclear Medicine and Science Camp, which was graciously hosted by the Crooms Academy of Information Technology, a Seminole County public high school located in Sanford. The two teachers who led the camp, Denise Newsome and Chelsea Holloway, performed a virtuoso duet of teaching skill with the eighteen campers, who were rising 8th and 9th graders.

Denise Newsome joined the Nuclear Medicine and Science Camp program in 2020 while she was teaching high school chemistry and physics at Bay County’s rural Deane Bozeman School, located about twenty miles north of Panama City. Denise led the conversion of the camp, which had been face-to-face in 2018 and 2019, to a virtual format in 2020. She left Bozeman at the end of the 2021-22 school year to join the Florida State University – Panama City ASCENT program as its Director of Youth Programs.

Chelsea Holloway teaches science at Teague Middle School in Altamonte Springs. Chelsea previously partnered with the University of Florida “Scientist in Every Florida School” program, so she was accustomed to the challenges of working with university faculty members (like me). Chelsea has also worked with the University of Central Florida Physics Department on its Learning Assistant Program.

Chelsea’s skill with middle school-aged campers was abundantly clear. The eighteen campers approached the week’s camp activities from eighteen distinct directions. And yet Chelsea smoothly integrated the group, knowing when to push a camper and when to lay off, and finding ways to connect campers with each other without the campers noticing her hidden hand at all. Through it all, Chelsea seemed imperturbable.

Chelsea and Denise enjoyed the teamwork and fed off each other all week. It was a joy to watch (and mostly I watched – and I was even a little intimidated).

The camp included a field trip to Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital on Tuesday afternoon to visit the nuclear medicine facilities. In addition, the campers spent Thursday on a field trip to Tallahassee to visit the FSU Physics Department and its John D. Fox Superconducting Accelerator Laboratory.

I’ll add one more note that may seem to some readers to have little or nothing to do with the camp. But here it is: Denise left the teaching profession this spring, and the loss to Deane Bozeman School and Bay District Schools is incalculable. Seminole County Schools (an organization that does a lot of great work) would be wise to do whatever it takes to keep Chelsea in the classroom. She is an amazing educator.

This year’s camp was supported by the Center for Excellence in Nuclear Training and University-Based Research (CENTAUR), based at Texas A&M University, and the FSU Physics Department. The FSU Physics Department is a CENTAUR partner.

Chelsea Holloway watches as a camper uses a radiation monitor to make a measurement with a radioactive source.

Denise Newsome assists a camper with a measurement with a radiation monitor.

Two campers hunt for natural radiation sources in the Crooms Academy courtyard.

Dr. Damita Thomas briefs campers on the uses of nuclear medicine techniques at Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital.

Campers performing gamma-ray spectroscopy with radioactive sources.

Campers performing gamma-ray spectroscopy with radioactive sources.

Doctoral candidate Gordon McCann tours campers through the John D. Fox Superconducting Accelerator Laboratory.

FSU Physics Professor Fernando Febres Cordero introduces campers to particle physics.