Summer Camps: The Power of Role Models
As hot summer days take over, the possibilities of how to spend the relaxing months are endless. What better way to spend the summer than being surrounded by curious individuals with shared interests. The answer is simple: Summer Camps. Let’s break down how Building Bridges, Inc. bridges the gap between STEM exposure to younger generations, building confidence, and summer fun.
Insight into our STEM Empowerment Summer Camp
At Building Bridges, Inc. summer programs are more than a summer pass time, they are designed to take campers' curiosity and foster confidence. During June, we hosted our second annual STEM Empowerment Summer Camp, working with 20 young girls between the ages of 9-12. Our STEM Empowerment Summer Camp was packed with fun, hands-on experiments, and mentorship activities designed to spark creativity and build confidence. This camp provided young girls with the tools, confidence, and inspiration they needed to not only voice their curiosities in STEM, but to explore them as well. Throughout the camp, girls engaged in exciting experiences like creating cosmetic products (sugar scrubs, hair shampoos, soaps, lip balms) through hands-on experiments, participating in daily mentoring sessions to build confidence, engaging enrichment group activities, and exploring real-world STEM environments through a field trip to the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center.
By the end of the week, all acquired knowledge was used to take on a final challenge: Product Pitch Competition. This takes learning to the next level as it transcends the classroom and delves into real-world situations and consumer profiles, where skills like problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration are utilized. This activity allowed campers to pitch their product ideas to STEM professionals who served as judges.
The Role of Mentors: Mentorship Sessions
None of this would be possible without our camp mentors. These camp mentors are college students (undergraduate and graduate), and they play a vital role spearheading mentorship sessions and most importantly, showing up as a role model. During these small group mentor sessions, campers, and mentors have an opportunity to connect and build community around topics such as giving compliments, effective communication, making positive choices, and much more.
Why Mentorship Matters?
We believe in representation, diversity, and belonging, particularly within STEM. With our camp mentors who represented different walks of life, our campers were able to see themselves in different spaces which created a sense of belonging. Our mentorship groups paired 3-4 girls with one mentor. This pairing allowed for more meaningful, rich discussions which led to greater impact. Both mentor and campers were given the space and time to uplift one another through endless support, encouragement, and open mindedness. In addition, mentors networked with each other and our high school support interns to create meaningful connections based on shared experiences. That’s the recipe for building community, camper to camper, mentor to camper, and mentor to mentor!
This STEM Empowerment Summer Camp goes beyond fun, STEM experiments. This summer camp is effective in fostering lifelong friendships (amongst the campers and with the summer camp staff), effective communication, and leadership development. As we continue striving towards our mission, we put our core values forefront, leading with confidence and resilience. We will aim to continue to provide young girls and young adults with the resources they need to confidently and boldly take up space in these fields, by being a step in their path to becoming the future leaders, innovators, and researchers of the world.