JOHNSON COUNTY — A nationally recognized STEM summer camp is making innovation fun for kids in one Johnson County community.
Camper Emmy is a young entrepreneur.
“I think it’s easy to make a hot dog and like I like lemonade," Emmy said. “You have a lot of craft supplies to work with and it’s fun.”
She’s spending her week at Center Grove Elementary School for Camp Invention.
Across the nation, the program serves 118,000 students every year from more than 2,200 schools and districts.
Director Kelli Swigert says the program has been at Center Grove for more than two decades.
“This is my favorite week of the summer. This is definitely my families favorite week of the summer. My own children and family member have grown up with this program," Swigert said.
On a day to day basis, the campers rotate through five different National Inventors Hall of Fame modules, which include:
- Catching Air™: Taking a confidence-building ride through physics, engineering and art, children design and build their own skate park.
- Invention Celebration™: Campers take on the role of event planners as they throw a party celebrating creativity and innovation.
- MimicBot™: Children show their unique style when they transform a robot that mimics sounds into a one-of-a-kind animatronic stuffie.
- Pop-Up Venture™: Big ideas come to life as campers design their own mini pop-up business.
“We are still educational based, but the kids have so much fun. It’s still in a school environment, so they’re used to the school behaviors. More than anything, it’s to engage them in the summer," Swigert said.
The camp has been a staple in Jamison Taylor’s life.
“My mom was an instructor here. I got started in the blue group when I was in kindergarten. I worked my way through all the color groups. From there, I think it was about middle school. I started to be the lit, which is a training leadership position," Taylor said.
And today, she’s proud to be a camp instructor.
“You bring these kids here and we’re with them for one week. So you wanna make a difference with them. You wanna make an impact. It’s just that every moment matters. I got these kids for 55 minutes over camp. I bring that into my adult life as a teacher," Taylor said.
The camp caters to incoming kindergartners to incoming sixth graders.
There’s also a leadership program called leaders in training — that’s geared towards incoming seventh, eighth and ninth grade.
