Innovative Experiences Redefine Summer School
Every child can become a creator, innovator or entrepreneur. To enable them to reach their potential, it is vital that we help them build the right mindset. By contributing to the National Inventors Hall of Fame® (NIHF) Annual Fund, you’re funding the development of curricula designed to do just that.
Each summer, NIHF’s education team delivers a brand-new Camp Invention® curriculum that is the result of a 20-month development process. This meticulous process ensures that every year, the Camp Invention program helps participating children build the Innovation Mindset™ — a growth mindset that unlocks creative potential by helping children to exercise the same essential skills and traits demonstrated by world-changing innovators, including NIHF Inductees.
Not only is the Camp Invention curriculum customizable and easy for school districts to implement, but it is also designed to spark the joy of both teaching and learning. Through hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) exploration, the curriculum inspires children’s imaginations, encourages them to collaborate, instills the entrepreneurial spirit and leads them to build confidence and persistence.
Each time you give to the Annual Fund, you make it possible for NIHF’s education team to continue crafting innovative experiences that make a lasting impact on the next generation. Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) is just one of many districts across the country where your support is making a difference.
Offering an Inspiring Curriculum
For school districts large and small, summer learning and enrichment programs represent important opportunities to help students both catch up academically and prepare for a successful school year. The increased need for remote learning throughout 2020 and 2021, paired with unequal access to at-home resources, meant that for many schools, their 2021 summer programming was especially important to help prevent the children in their care from falling behind.
CMSD, the second-largest school district in Ohio, needed to find an educational partner to provide a customized solution to reimagine their summer programming while aligning with state academic standards.
“Cleveland wanted to redefine what summer school looked like,” said Greg Adkins, principal of the Hannah STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) School in Cleveland.
Central to CMSD’s decision to implement Camp Invention was the knowledge that each year’s curriculum is designed to an impactful experience that aligns with state and national learning standards and ensures easy implementation.
For a large district that serves as many students as Cleveland Metropolitan does, the ability to offer a turnkey program that can be taught by educators with diverse backgrounds was crucial to meeting its staffing needs.
“We knew that we were going to have educators with various backgrounds — some that may have STEM experience [and] some that may not have STEM experience,” Adkins said. “The projects offered through Camp Invention provide teachers with everything they would need to deliver authentic STEM experiences.”
Stephanie Bluffestone, a second-grade teacher at CMSD’s Memorial Elementary School, appreciates how the camp curriculum encourages children to work together. “It’s a great learning experience, getting [students] together and learning how to collaborate [and] learning how to communicate with each other,” she said.
One of CMSD’s primary goals has been to provide children with educational activities that enable joyful and adventurous learning. Camp Invention’s curriculum achieves this by offering exciting, open-ended challenges that give children the opportunity to actively design, build and test their own creative solutions.
De’Anthony, a camper who attended the 2021 program, enjoyed his experience and appreciated how he was able to solve real-world problems. “Camp is fun because we do [different] types of marble runs, and we try to fix the world and help it out,” De’Anthony said in an interview with NIHF.
Tiffany, another camper, had fun building and collaborating with others. “I shared my ideas by making things and building and [using] cooperation,” Tiffany said in an interview with NIHF. “So when we collaborate, we also work together as a team [and] it makes me feel happy.”
Transform Summer Learning in More Communities
NIHF’s innovative curricula are making an impact for the students and educators at CMSD, and your support will help do the same for more school districts nationwide. Thanks to your Annual Fund gift, NIHF is always developing new STEM adventures in the form of mindset-building Camp Invention curricula.
Use the link below and select “Area of Greatest Need/Annual Fund” as the program you would like to support to reach children across the country.
When you give today, you can change tomorrow.