With this camp, it's business as usual to see a room full of students firing spitballs while their teachers cheer.

It's hardly a parent's nightmare. It's a unique science exercise designed to teach kids about how rockets and space shuttles work.

Camp Galileo is a four-week summer camp that engages kindergartners through fifth- graders in activities that make art, science and the outdoor fun. The camp is the brainchild of Galileo Educational Services. The organization's founders felt these three areas were being emphasized less and less in schools, Ileana Street, vice president of marketing and operations at GES, says.

"The goal [of Camp Galileo] is to help kids discover and pursue their passions," Street says.

Camp Galileo was held for the first time in Palo Alto in 2002. This summer, 10 camps are being hosted simultaneously in 10 locations around the Bay Area--including, for the first time, a camp at Argonaut Elementary School in Saratoga. More than 200 children showed up for the first day of camp on June 27.

GES partners with three other leading educational organizations to design its unique curriculum--The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Art in Action and Klutz. Each week the art, science and outdoor activity classes follow a different theme.

The Tech Museum provides the science curriculum. Street says the lessons and activities follow the museum's "Design in Mind" philosophy, and often involve the children being given materials and a set length of time to build something specific with them. For example, during "Building Big" week, children are given Legos and are instructed to build a tower that is six inches tall and can survive a simulated earthquake. If the tower falls, it's back to the drawing board.

"Once the activity is complete, that is when the instructor discusses with them why some towers worked, and why some didn't. So it's very hands-on," Street says, explaining classes are less about lectures at Camp Galileo. "It's a wonderful way to help children learn by doing."

On June 29, a science class of third- through fifth-graders was instructed to build model rockets out of paper. They looked like a combination between a space shuttle and a paper airplane, and students had to think about how to make their rockets as aerodynamic as possible. Once they were done, they took them outside and had a competition--by sticking a straw into the bottom of their rockets and blowing. Two children in the class were rewarded for building rockets that went the farthest and the highest. Then they discussed what qualities the winning rockets had that made them the best--the right size, fins that cut down on wind resistance and more.

Dougal Watson, 10, whose rocket went the farthest, said he and his father often make their own model rockets at home, so this activity was especially appealing for him.

"It was pretty fun," Dougal says. He says his rocket went far because "it was long and skinny and had tail fins."

Tara Heffernan, 10, says her rocket won for going the highest because "it had fins and they were curved, so it sliced through the air."

However, Shelley Martinez, 10, says her favorite activity so far has been building boxcars.

"We got to build them and put motors in them. Then we tried them to see how fast they could go," she says. "I like to build things; it's fun."

After testing them, the class learned how factors such as the distribution of weight affected how fast the cars went, Shelley says.

Klutz, a division of Scholastic that publishes books on children's activities, designs the outdoor activity classes for Camp Galileo. In their first week, some classes learned about parachutes. After shoving a small parachute into a ball that has a hole at one end and a strap attached to it, children used the strap to swing the balls high into the air. As they came back down, the parachutes came out and they floated to the ground. The activity seemed to light up the faces of all the children.

African art was the first theme of all the art activities, so classrooms were decorated with African paintings and photos of traditional sculptures, masks and headdresses. Students were taught how to make "khamsa" necklaces by tracing their hands on construction paper, decorating them, cutting them out and stringing them on a necklace. The teachers explained this African tradition was thought to bring tribes good luck. On another day, the children made their own animal masks and had an animal parade. The art curriculum is brought to the table by Art in Action, an organization that has been designing art-based educational programs for schools since 1982.

"I've sent both of my kids to Camp Galileo for two years, and every year they learn something new," Kathryn Besser says. "I've never seen so much creative thought put into a camp program."

Street says the instructors and camp leaders hired by Camp Galileo are chosen carefully.

"We have a pretty rigorous interview process," she says.

Street explains their instructors must have a college degree and some prior teaching experience, and that they have to go through four rounds of positive interviews and teach an impressive mock class before they are hired. GES also conducts thorough background checks on all applicants. In addition to instructors, Camp Galileo offers college students the chance to be team leaders and assist the teachers for experience, and high school seniors can volunteer to be counselors-in-training. This provides children with a lot of individual attention. Most classes have only eight kids to each instructor, and for kindergartners, it's six to one. Street says the instructors this year bring a lot of expertise to the table.

"A lot of our art instructors are actually artists on the side. And a lot of our science instructors have worked in the science or engineering fields," she says.

So, it seems parents can not only feel safe sending their children to Camp Galileo, they can be confident they will walk away with a deeper appreciation of art, science and the outdoors.

One thing's for sure--this year's kids will never think about a spitball in quite the same way again.

Visit Camp Galileo at www.campgalileo.com or call 1.800.854.3684.