By: Ryan Hutchison, Development Director at East Austin College Prep Academy
East Austin College Prep Academy and the Southwest Key Boys and Girls Club, with funding assistance from the KDK Harman Foundation, partnered to develop and bring a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Summer Institute to Austin’s eastside this summer. East Austin College Prep teachers and Boys and Girls Club counselors created a fun, engaging camp with comprehensive lesson plans and exciting fieldtrips; creating a balanced curriculum of fun experiences and unique educational opportunities.
I distinctly remember the sheer boredom of summer; stuck inside watching CHIPs and Gilligan’s Island reruns day after day and having water balloon fights with fellow neighborhood ruffians. There was no Officer Ponch around to help keep me out of trouble. Days turned into weeks and months of the same activities. I am sure there were studies out in the 80’s about summer learning loss, there must have been, I always came back to school and spent the first couple months relearning things we went over the previous year. We may have had summer camps, but I’m sure that archery activity I loved so much didn’t help me academically the next school year.
Employees and teachers buzzed with excitement when we received confirmation that we would be able to create a STEM Summer Institute and make it available to all members of our community through low fees and scholarships. Teachers and Boys and Girls Club staff worked busily behind the scenes, creating weekly outcome based lesson plans with field trips wrapped around a specific subject area. The kids were suspicious, and rightly so; learning during the summer is an alien concept, contrary to everything they work towards all year. As such, enrollment was pretty unimpressive the first two weeks with an average of 80 children attending daily.
The first week of the Stem Summer Institute focused on endangered species. Students were engaged through innovative and balanced instruction focusing on the subject. Youth participated in 90 minute classes including STEM Lab, Computer Lab, Arts and Outside Recreation. They went to the IMAX theatre and created a Girl Scout troop. To their surprise, the kids were having fun, even if they were learning while doing it. By the second week, with our focus on robotics, the kids were making like STYX and saying “domo arigato” to our teachers and telling their friends about the fun they were having. Enrollment and daily attendance shot up, with approximately 100 students attending daily.
Students had amazing field trips that kept them excited and their attendance up. Those included: A trip to a high school robotics lab, a trip to San Marcos to ride on glass bottom boats, a mobile petting zoo, Millennium Center trip, Barton Springs, Sea World, Volente Beach, channelAustin television studio, Austin Park n’ Pizza, and many more. Students created claymation films, built awesome robots and so much more. I only have 600 words available for this blog, I can’t fit all the incredible things our students learned and did in one post.
Our parents were pleased with the programming as well. Janie Castillo-Flores, a parent of two students, had this to say about the STEM Summer Institute in thanking KDK Harman for their support. “I have 2 children who attend EACPA. This summer I had the arduous task of keeping my children busy and active. I needed to find an activity that was going to keep them engaged and wanting to come back. I am very appreciative that through your support I found exactly that at EACPA. My children have attended the summer camp program at the Boys and Girls Club since it began. They have really enjoyed themselves and have asked to return every week. I am glad that an affordable program has been added to the neighborhood so that our children have had an opportunity to engage with their peers”.
We were fortunate to have the opportunity to bring new, fun learning experiences to our students this year and hope to bring a bigger, better camp to the east Austin community next year. Thank you, KDK Harman for your sponsorship and support. We couldn’t have provided these experiences for our students without you!
Ryan Hutchison is the new Director of Development at East Austin College Prep Academy. He is new to the non-profit sector, having worked for ten years in politics. Ryan’s conscious has recently thanked him for changing career paths.
