Summer Academic Enrichment Eligible Programs

Goals

Objective: To awaken the innovator within each student.

Goal 1: To provide the opportunity for over 300 students to experience a high-quality camp experience.

Goal 2: To provide access to tools, materials, and training so that each student can design, construct, and present a personally meaningful individual project.

Goal 3: To provide multiple girls-only weeks of camp led by a female instructor.

Activities

Summer engineering camp at the Bakken Museum encourages campers to be innovators! Camp offers youth opportunities for growth and development. Through relationships with skilled mentors and staff, campers develop confidence, skills, and the knowledge that they can shape their world. Camp activities support the development of a growth mindset and persistence through setbacks. Each day students work in teams to tackle a creative problem-solving challenge where they have to work together to design something that addresses a problem.

Students receive safety training, so they have the confidence and aptitude to work with real tools and materials. Over the course of the week, students learn about the invention process: think it, make it, improve it, and show it. This approach guides them while inventing a device that solves a personal problem. This process provides students the opportunity to practice problem solving and iterative design. At the end of the week all students have a completed project that they made with their own hands and the opportunity to present the project to an audience of friends, family, and museum staff. This project goes home with them and can serve as a reminder of their abilities.

Program Dates

Summer camp in 2024 runs from 6/17 through 8/30, and the camps are one-week sessions, Monday through Friday.

Can students reside on campus? No

Can students commute to campus? Yes

Can students take online classes? No