Summer School Is in Session

Campers live on campus for a week and participate in lectures and hands-on activities. Since many campers attend year after year, program coordinators vary the curriculum in each session to keep it engaging. Past activities include engineering design principles, coding, veterinary science, rockets, physics and biology. 

“The campers really come out of their shells over the course of the week,” said Kaitlin Kelly ’25, a Gaddis Girls’ STEM Camp counselor and past six-year attendee of Aggie STEM camps and a freshman biomedical sciences major. “When I was a camper, I was so shy that I faced the back wall of the stage during my talent show performance. But my confidence eventually grew, and I’m still friends with the people from my summer camps who came to Texas A&M.” 

“At Gaddis Girls, the campers see all female professors, graduate students and undergraduate students,” added Dr. Robert Capraro, a co-director of Aggie STEM. “We make sure they see themselves represented at Texas A&M because we want them to leave saying, ‘I can find a professor in math, science, engineering or technology who is like me.’”  

You can help inspire the next generation of women in STEM by supporting the Gaddis Girls STEM Camp Endowed Scholarship Fund. 

Encourage STEM learners

“It’s a great experience for the kids because they have fun while being physically active,” said Dan Gomez ’04 ’10, director of Camp Adventure. “Our counselors teach them about each activity we do, like the proper way to shoot an arrow. And since many of our counselors are current kinesiology majors, they gain valuable experience teaching and working with kids.” 

Gomez noted that many campers discover their passion for a particular activity and continue it once they go home. “Some of the camp activities can be continued as hobbies or sports. One of our mottos in the Physical Education Activity Program that the camp also uses is ‘Lifetime Fitness, Lifetime Wellness, Lifetime Activity.’ By exposing campers to these activities early, they learn that physical wellness can last their whole lifetime.” 

You can help campers discover their passions by giving to the Martha Muckleroy ’94 Camp Adventure Endowed Scholarship fund.

Support adventure
 

As part of their itinerary, campers design a bridge over a week-long session and build it in a race at the end. Past activities have included purifying water from a local creek and calculating the force required to spray a counselor with water from across a lawn.

Campers tour department facilities and on-campus labs and engage in the design process with guidance from engineering faculty and current students. Participants live in a dorm for a week, getting their first taste of college life. Scavenger hunts familiarize them with campus, and students and their parents receive information about Texas A&M admissions and financial aid opportunities. 

“Even if the campers don’t pursue civil engineering in college, we still consider it a success if they realize they can attain a higher education,” said Dr. Robin Autenrieth, founder of Camp BUILD. “We try to recruit participants from underserved communities because it’s important for communities to be served by people who represent them and because we want kids to know that they, too, can succeed in engineering.”  

Want to support BUILD’s mission of introducing students to engineering and higher education?

Give to the Camp BUILD fund
 

Organized by Texas 4-H, the youth development organization of Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service, Mission Possible is committed to helping every camper enjoy their experience.

Activities such as kayaking and rock climbing are made accessible through special devices and extra dedication from staff and volunteers, who outnumber the campers. For three days and two nights, campers live on-site in Brownwood, Texas.  

Campers are not required to be in 4-H, but many 4-H principles influence Mission Possible. “The main purpose is to learn by doing through hands-on experiences and non-typical classroom settings,” said Tyler Cheely, Mission Possible director. “What better place for these experiences than at camp? Here, we teach applicable life skills that benefit campers long after they leave."

The camp’s accommodations range from typical equipment, such as chairlifts for swimming in the pool, to a specialized seated harness that allows campers who cannot use their legs to ascend a rock-climbing wall. “We set out to include everyone,” Cheely said, “and we do just that.”  

Students in third through 12th grades and up to age 21 can attend.

 Register here
 

Camp SOAR provides a valuable opportunity for high schoolers to get a jump start on careers in engineering, but even students who do not major in aerospace engineering gain critical thinking and teamwork skills, an understanding of the engineering design process and an ignited desire to pursue higher education. 

“Projects are individual to get everyone fully engaged,” said Dr. John Valasek, a professor in the aerospace department. “Participating pulls campers out of their shell to say, ‘Hey, I can do this!’”

Campers also receive opportunities to talk to astronauts, Aggie professors and experts in the aerospace industry. “If Camp SOAR had more funding, we could open it to more students. We’re happy to have 60 participants this summer, but with more funding, we could grow the program by opening more tracks and increasing the rigor and quality of the projects.” 

Help Camp SOAR grow and offer engineering opportunities to more students by supporting the Camp SOAR fund.

Encourage future engineers

With dozens of summer camps to choose from, there’s something for every child or teenager at Texas A&M. Camps are run by their parent department or institute within the university, so fees, registration times and applications vary between camps.

In general, most academically minded camps require applications, which may include essays or letters of recommendation, but each camp is unique. You can find out more about a range of Texas A&M’s summer camps here.