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The Programs
NEW: Spring Break Sessions 2025
March 9-16 and April 13 -20.
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Family Camp: 7-nights, lodge-based, ½ day of pinhole photography, and ½ day of outdoor recreation and naturalist activities. Meals and overnights are included, $1795 per-person.
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All ages can join this family camp experience; however some aspects of pinhole photography and darkroom work are not appropriate for those under 12 yrs old. See "The Detailed Descriptions" link below for the full itinerary.
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Summer Break Sessions
One Week: 6-Days
Monday-Friday: 10AM-4PM
Saturday: 10AM- 12:30PM
Grades 7-11
Use "Interest Form" below for 2025 dates and prices.
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Weekend Sessions
Two Weekends: Sat-Sun/4-Days
10:00AM – 3:30PM
Grades 7-11
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Locations
Sessions take place at Seattle's Georgetown Steam Plant, other venues in the Seattle area, as well as locations around the US to allow us to seasonally engage the outdoors for photography and recreation.
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Who Is This For?
Students grades 6-11 who are interested in a hands-on, collaborative workshop experience of photography, science, and art. Family Camp sessions are all age.
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The Rationale
In contrast to many classroom-based yet essentially online and digital experiences, this learning experience will be a deliberately analog, each student producing a physical portfolio of photographs.
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Dates and Prices
To receive information on upcoming sessions: Select the Interest Form (below).
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For Additional Information
On Pinhole Photography Science Camps and other upcoming SkyDome Education projects email Dan Pickard at:
THE ACTIVITIES
What will students do?
Student pinhole photograph of Mr. Pickard taking a pinhole photo.
EVALUATE LIGHTING AND EXPOSURE TIME
Students will learn how to evaluate lighting and exposure time. Additionally, we'll explore ideas of visual composition and what makes a “good photo." Working collaboratively with other students, participants will share their photographic struggles, fixes, and support each other down the path to success.
DEVELOP PHOTOGRAPHS
Students will learn how to use chemistry to develop their own black & white photos in a darkroom, (it’s actually not dark but red. 😊)
Student developing a photograph in the darkroom.
THE KEY TAKEAWAYS
What will a student learn via this pinhole photography project?
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To design, build, problem-solve, while engaging critical thinking, scientific methods, optics/physics/chemistry, creative and artistic skills
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Photography skills applicable to any camera.
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A level of mastery of black & white photography and darkroom processing.
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Life skills that have benefits beyond this project.
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To engage the design and build process in a real-world way, via testing, observing their results, acquiring and applying new scientific content knowledge and methods at this nexus of art and science.
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The benefits of organizing one’s work and workflow.
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A mistake is not a failure but a useful insight into what to try next to reach success.
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Collaboration, sharing challenges, successes, and ideas to achieve their goals.
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Reflecting, presenting and explaining to others their path to success.
THE EXPERIENCE
Engage the science, art, and processes involved in pinhole photography; and establish our daily schedule
Explore the Georgetown Steam Plant as a scientific, technologic, historic, and creative space.
Build our own pinhole cameras with materials provided.
Compose and capture latent images with our cameras, develop these into photographs using an onsite, black & white darkroom, and collaboratively address the challenges and successes of our work each day.
Scan (a digital entry into a mostly analogue experience), learn how to adjust images with photo apps, print our best, and assemble a portfolio of our photographic work.
Share our best photos and celebrate on the last day.
"You investigate for curiosity, because it is unknown,
not because you know the answer."
- Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (collected essays), Awarded The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.
THE INSTRUCTORS
Meet Mr. Muhs and Mr. Pickard
Eric Muhs and Dan Pickard, veteran Seattle Public Schools science teachers, bring a wealth of experience to the classroom, with a combined total of nearly 50 years dedicated to teaching science and pinhole photography.
No longer engaged in full-time classroom teaching, their passion for educating and inspiring students remains as strong as ever.
“Science is a way of getting knowledge. It's a method that relies on making mistakes. We propose ideas, they are usually wrong, and we test them against the data. It's a way that everyone can go through life; that's how we should be teaching science from a very young age.”
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- Sean M. Carroll, Johns Hopkins University, Department of Physics and Astronomy.
THE LOCATION
The Georgetown Steam Plant
Utilizing the steam plant location visually inspires students with its photogenic, industrial-age architecture and design which truly represents the original “Steam-Punk,” as well as engaging us in Seattle history in support of the education, art, and science.
The Georgetown Steam Plant was built in 1906 to energize the region’s growing electric streetcar system. The plant was designed to run on either coal or oil. As hydropower became the primary source of electricity for the Seattle region, the plant operated until 1977 when it was decommissioned.
Note: The Georgetown Steam Plant is an industrial facility currently transitioning into the next phase of its life. The Steam Plant is currently under renovation there are areas of the Steam Plant that are currently off limits to all visitors and some that are not ADA Compliant.