Summer Camp 2024

Join us for Summer break! This STEAM camp will have you building, making, designing, researching, learning, and having FUN! Each week of this year’s Summer STEAM Camp will have the scientist in your life excited for more! 

This camp is for rising 1st graders through rising 6th graders.

Choose to explore for a week or stay the whole summer! Summer camp will run for 9 weeks beginning July 1st and ending the week of August 26th, 2024.

Weekly Themes

Week of July 1st (no camp July 4th): Design, Prototype, & Invent (new)

Get ready for an exhilarating week of innovation and creativity! Brace yourselves to dream big and unleash your imagination as we dive into the process of brainstorming ideas, crafting prototypes, and transforming our wildest inventions into reality. Ignite your entrepreneurial spirit as you design and prototype your groundbreaking product, all while considering factors like cost, need, and production. The grand finale? Pitch your revolutionary idea to none other than your fellow campers!

Week of July 8th: Lost at USL: Jurassic World

Long, long ago dinosaurs dominated the land they roamed. Although dinosaurs are now extinct, paleontologists can piece together the details of their lives and evolution through fossil records. This week, USL digs deeper into Earth’s past by excavating our own fossils, creating imprints of native flora, charting adaptations, and re-imagining what Earth looked like 200 million years ago. 

Week of July 15th: Campers v. Machines

Computers have become so advanced in the last couple decades, it’s hard to imagine how everything we do day-to-day would be possible without them. This week we take a trip through time to experience how technology has changed as the size of electrical parts became smaller and smaller. This week we’ll be dissecting machines from the past like walkmans, beepers, and early cell phones then build our own microchipped creations. 

Week of July 22nd: USL Goes Viral: Germs, Bacteria, & the Human Body

Did you know that we have more microbial cells, like germs, bacteria, and fungus, in our body than human cells?! Rather than make us sick, the human body has adapted to co-exist with and even depend on many of these microbial organisms. This week we’ll get into the science of gross! Investigate different organs in the human body, map the microscopic ecosystem that lives on our skin, grow your own bacteria culture, and model the structures of bacteria and viruses.

Week of July 29th: Science v. Science Fiction (NEW)

Embark on an exploration of real-world science and its imaginative counterparts in fiction through storytelling. In this camp, we’ll compare scientific facts with fantastical elements from popular science fiction stories, movies, and TV shows and decide what is truly possible. From light-speed space travel and teleportation devices to traveling back in time, this mind-bending adventure could not be more exciting.

Week of August 5th: Game Builders 

Before screens, tabletop games like board games, deck building games, and role playing games (RPG’s) ruled the gaming world. This week we’ll lead you through the process of designing and building your very own tabletop game. First we’ll storyboard your game’s universe, characters, gameplay, and rulebook. Then, we’ll learn how to design and 3D print the pieces you’ll need to play your game. Every Game Builder will get to bring their game home to play with the family!

Week of August 12th: The Case of the Vengeful Labrat: a whodunnit mystery (NEW)

Get ready for an exciting adventure! Unleash your inner detective to solve a mysterious and mischievous case: the Case of the Vengeful Lab Rat. Our young sleuths will find themselves in a science laboratory filled with quirky characters, peculiar experiments, and one vengeful lab rat seeking justice. It's up to us to follow the clues, decipher codes, and interview suspects to crack the case wide open.

Week of August 19th: Time Traveling through science

We didn’t always know that the Earth was round, why the sky is blue, or that those sparkly dots in the night sky are stars just like the sun. Take a trip through time, from the early ages of science to present day, and explore the major discoveries that allowed humans to progress in the sciences and beyond!

Week of August 26th: The Science of all things Gross (NEW)

Get ready to explore the fascinating and sometimes squirm-inducing aspects of biology, chemistry, and physics that make things delightfully gross. From slimy slime molds to stinky microbes, students will dive into the microscopic realm and discover the hidden secrets of the gross side of science.