Georgetown South Coding Camp
Inspiring the Next Generation of Innovators
Early exposure to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) can spark curiosity in young minds and develop life changing future career opportunities. That's why we partnered with The Georgetown South Community Council Foundation and The Kuma Foundation to bring this coding camp the the community center.
Purpose of the STEM Camp
This summer camp was about learning to code and about igniting a passion for problem-solving, creativity, and critical thinking. The camp provided resident youth in middle school with the opportunity to dive into the world of STEM through hands-on activities. These students were be introduced to basic coding concepts via the MIT Scratch platform.
By offering a camp designed around active learning and mentorship, we aimed to:
Equip students with foundational coding skills.
Help students envision future STEM careers by inviting STEM professionals to present.
Foster important soft skills like collaboration, leadership, and confidence.
Campers learn how to write code and build relationships with mentors. It's a unique chance for them to explore their creativity and develop essential skills that will help them succeed in future STEM opportunities.
What Students Will Learn
Our curriculum is designed to engage students in a fun and interactive way while building their knowledge and skills in STEM:
Introduction to Coding: Students will learn basic programming principles using kid-friendly coding platforms.
Creative Problem Solving: Campers will apply their coding skills to create their own games, animations, and interactive stories.
Collaboration & Leadership: Through teamwork, students will tackle group projects that require collaboration, creative thinking, and problem-solving. They'll also work closely with mentors to develop leadership and confidence.
One of the most exciting aspects of the program is the opportunity for students to work closely with high school and college mentors. These mentors will not only guide students through their projects but also act as role models, providing inspiration and encouragement.
Why This Matters
In many underserved communities, students don't always have access to the resources or opportunities that spark an interest in STEM fields. By bringing this camp directly to them, Dream in NOVA is working to close the opportunity gap, giving students the tools and mentorship they need to succeed.
This camp is about more than just coding, our goal is to inspire these young students to see STEM as an avenue for creativity, and future career opportunities. Whether they go on to study computer science, engineering, or simply gain new problem-solving skills, we believe this experience will have a lasting impact.
Conclusion of Program
We ended our camp on a high note. Thank you to the parents and community members who came out to support our GTS Scratch Coding Camp showcase. We made leaps in just a short camp. We introduced students to computer science and programming concepts. At the end of the camp all the students were able to define algorithms, variables, loops, conditional statements, bugs, and more!
With these concepts they built their own games; we have a variety of mazes, including wizard tacos running from a fruit bowl, an apple celebrating it’s birthday and collecting birthday cakes for points, a penguin collecting fish for points, a bear cub searching for it’s mother while trying to avoid being hunted by two girls, a Butterly maze, a Minecraft inspired game where you have to collect keys to unlock doors, and a SAVE THE UNIVERSE game where our only hope was our hero Devin.
We are so proud of our campers in this program. Two of them found the courage to present in front of an audience and I’m sure we all know it’s no easy task! Throughout the camp all the students developed confidence as we worked on our soft skills and emphasized what it means to be well-rounded, having a growth mindset, and overcoming challenges.
In addition to learning how to code the students appreciated that we brought in speakers from a variety of engineering and STEM careers to expose them to the many ways programming can be used in the world. One of their favorite presenters was an electrical engineer intern from BAE Systems who talked about Jupiter’s Moon Europa and how programming is embedded in space missions.
Eric Nicholas Godwin the Manassas City Schools Work Based Learning Specialist, and one of our very own board members, was a great resource as the keynote speaker today. Eric shared valuable information on opportunities at Metz and Osbourn for career and technical training. Manassas City Schools does an amazing job in creating opportunities and Eric was able to highlight that for the parents and students today!
Thank you to our amazing partners, the Kuma Foundation and Georgetown South Community Council Foundation (Georgetown South Community) for welcoming Dream in NOVA into your spaces and allowing us to make this camp a reality! We all share the same mission of empowering our community for a brighter future and we are doing just that.
Last but not least, a special thank you to Mike Beaty for supporting us with media content!
Play our students' games!
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1194468333 - Wizard Taco
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1194448984 - Bear Cub Game
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1194471268 - Minecraft Inspired
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1194450281 - Birthday Apple
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1192502179 - SAVE THE UNIVERSE
Interested in supporting the program or learning more? Get in touch with us! Together, we can inspire and empower the next generation of STEM innovators.
