By Chris Bavender
For the fourth year, Boone Co. students entering grades one through six can enrich their summer at Camp Invention. The week-long adventure encourages creativity through STEM learning – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“It is important for children to be engaged and have a positive attitude toward the activities they are performing. Unfortunately, many children equate learning with a negative experience that is tied to completing something that is mandatory,” said Alaina Rutledge, Camp Invention director of education. “At Camp Invention, the children become immersed in the storyline and develop a desire to think, build and create. Since it comes from an internal desire, the learning can be very powerful.”
This empowers children to use tools and their own minds to create, Rutledge said, challenging them to think for themselves and “sparking that excitement to explore and discover.”
“The children discover that you don’t have to have fancy, expensive equipment to do STEM. You can work with easily available materials,” she said. “They realize STEM is nothing to be afraid of; it is having fun and looking at things in a new way.”
This summer’s camp curriculum is called Epic.
“The word epic is one of the current pop culture terms which indicates greatness and how unbelievably awesome something is. We wanted to use language that would resonate with the children and get them excited to dream big and create amazing inventions,” Rutledge said. “Not only is the program epic for the participants, it turned out to be an epic experience for our education team writing and piloting the activities.”
Experiences during the week will include:
Epic Park: Children will design and build an ecotourist island destination, complete with towering treehouses that have operating lifts and innovative games, gear and nature-based adventures for tourists to experience
CrickoBot: Children will build and take home a DIY solar-powered cricket
The Lab: Where Pigs Fly: Featuring experiments ranging from demolition and cup tower explosions to programming and coding, and much more
I Can Invent: Maker Studio: Campers will take apart machines and devices, and then repower the components
Camps are scheduled for June 13 to 17 at the Zionsville Community Schools Freshman Center, 1000 Mulberry St., Zionsville; and June 27 to July 1 at Traders Point Christian Academy, 6600 S. Indianapolis Rd., Whitestown. For more, or to find the nearest location to register, visit www.campinvention.org.
