Dave Meredith (left) gets soaked while launching a bottle rocket as his students participate in Space Camp for Girls on Monday at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus. The week-long camps take place this week and next week and are for females in fourth through sixth grades. Meredith, an engineering professor at the campus, has been educating youngsters about space through his program since 1990. Ed Cope/Herald-Standard

About 21 fourth- through sixth-grade girls from the area gave up toasted marshmallows and sing-alongs for a more celestial camp this summer.

Space Camp for Girls, a weeklong program that introduces the youngsters to space and the operations of the shuttle, began Monday at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus.

The program is presented by Dave Meredith, an engineering professor at the Fayette campus. Meredith has been educating the youngsters about space through a coed program since 1990.

In 1995, a grant by NASA funded a girls-only camp for about 10 years, but budget cuts in 2005 put an end to the funding. It was a program, Meredith said, too valuable to lose.

"I was on a roll by that time. I was enjoying it," Meredith said. "It's my passion, and I didn't want it to end."

He continued to offer the program, presented partly with The Women in Science, Engineering and Technology student club on campus. Meredith said satisfaction of reaching the youngsters is compensation enough for him.

"Some people go golfing or something for the holidays. I take kids into space for vacation," he said. "Part of the appeal is that one of them will become an engineer. That's my payback."

The week began with a briefing about how the space shuttle climbs into orbit, the systems and fuels used to get there, and the basic launch abort procedures. After some classroom instruction, Meredith and the class launched bottle rockets on the grounds of the campus.

Students of the camp then experienced what it is like to eat, sleep and live in space, experiencing a frictionless chair and learning to control the simulator. Planned for the remainder of the program will be working in space and learning how to land the simulator. Rounding out the camp, the girls will then fly a mission with their crew in a shuttle simulator. The simulator is constructed by Meredith and his camp helpers, Christina Parrill of South Connellsville, a junior at Connellsville Area High School; Julianne Buckel of Republic, a junior at Geibel Catholic Middle-High School; and Audra Tewell of Hopwood, a junior energy engineering major at the Fayette Campus.

"Assembly takes about four or five hours and then we do a run through to make sure everything works," said Buckel.

Meredith said inside the simulator, the students are exposed to workings much like a shuttle, with vintage computers that "talk" to each other and headsets that allow those inside to communicate with ground control, which is normally Meredith himself. The key mission is to rescue a satellite as the girls, in teams of seven, maneuver the shuttle that shakes, lights and quite often presents problems for the young astronauts to solve within 30 minutes.

"It becomes real for them," Meredith said. "Girls at this age, they are young enough to pretend, but old enough to understand, so they get so wound up about it. The excitement you hear inside that simulator is real."

Meredith said women in the field of engineering are a rarity, which is why he feels the program is a necessity. He said it's one way he can empower girls to go into a field they may not realize is available for them. For students like Callie Carlick, 14, of South Connellsville, the camp is one step closer to reaching her goal.

"I really got into the space stuff at school when we were learning about it," she said. "That's why I came here. I want to be an astronomer."

In addition to the space camp, Meredith offers several follow-up programs throughout the year, as well as other sessions for high school students. Next week, he will offer a five-day program titled Mission to Mars Space Experience where a new class will learn about the planet and complete a simulated landing there.

Parrill, Tewell and Buckel attribute the program's success to the dedication from Meredith, who they say has a way of projecting his enthusiasm to the students, leaving an impression that sometimes has them return to the same camp the next summer.

"I noticed that you get more out of the camp returning for another year," Buckel said. "I've seen some girls return and every time they go through the program, it feels to them like it's the first time they are experiencing it."