By Heather Ruenz
Editor
Camp Invention, a nationally recognized, nonprofit summer enrichment camp program, was held at Jackson Elementary School in June and welcomed kids from Elkhorn, Williams Bay and Lake Geneva.
It’s a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, a nonprofit organization dedicated to recognizing inventors and invention, promoting creativity, and advancing the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship.
What makes Camp Invention unique is that the curriculum is inspired by some of the nation’s most brilliant minds — the Inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. For students entering kindergarten through sixth grade, it offered hands-on problem solving, collaboration, and the use of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
“Inventive young minds can exercise their creativity and use their imagination, all while learning and developing new skills they typically don’t get to use in the classroom. Children are empowered to have big ideas while they take on challenges that inspire them to question, brainstorm, work as a team and build amazing invention prototypes,” the release states.
This year’s fresh, action-packed Camp Invention curriculum featured several hands-on modules:
- Duct Tape Billionaire campers designed duct tape products to market and sell to mock investors;
- Have a Blast: children built high-tech Bubble Blasters and competed as a team in friendly air battles that use physics to boost their advantage;
- Mission Space Makers: teams hatched eggs, sprouted living plants and grew crystal trees, all while on a mission to locate and prepare a new planet for human habitation, and
- Operation Keep Out: campers learned to reverse engineer old machines and devices, and used their parts to create the ultimate Spy Gadget Alarm Box.
All local Camp Invention programs are facilitated and taught by certified educators who reside and teach in the community. In Elkhorn, Nicole Meier served as the director.
“Campers are exploring activities designed to encourage creativity, problem solving, and an inventive spirit,” Meier said during the camp.
Camp Invention serves more than 130,000 students every year and partners with more than 1,400 schools and districts across the nation.
To learn more, including utilizing a search tool for upcoming camp invention programs, make a donation or become a sponsor, visit campinvention.com.
