ASMSA offers summer camps
The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts is now taking applications for its free “Summer At ASMSA” residential camps to be held June 11-17.
Campers are selected through a competitive application process, and priority applications must be submitted by April 10.
Summer At ASMSA is a weeklong summer camp in which participants explore a variety of topics through hands-on learning during the day, and enjoy fun activities at night while staying in the ASMSA Student Center.
It offers five individual camps: AEGIS Environmental Science and Biotechnology Camp; AEGIS Anime! Origami! Hiragana! Camp, Computer Science Camp, Studio Arts Camp, and Engineering Camp.
Each camp is free with no costs for tuition, meals or housing.
Amy Brown-Westmoreland, ASMSA outreach coordinator, said “Summer At ASMSA” is her favorite week of the year because she gets to see campers make new friends and great memories, while also learning about a subject they love without the pressure of grades.
“It’s such a great experience,” she said. “If you ever got to go to summer camp of any kind, in that one week you have, you know, ups and downs, you have best friends and things like that, that happen in a very short amount of time. And so
students, by the time they leave here, they’ve got a handful of new friends if not a whole lot more new friends, they’ve got best friends.”
Around 75 students from across the state attend the camps, she noted, and while it is generally for current ninth-graders who will be sophomores in the fall, eighth-graders may qualify for the early entrance program based on their ACT scores.
The AEGIS Environmental Science and Biotechnology Camp, along with the AEGIS Anime! Origami! Hiragana! Camp — a Japanese language camp, are sponsored through AEGIS grants from the state. AEGIS is an acronym for Academic Enrichment for the Gifted and Talented in Summer Programs. AEGIS An
ime! Origami! Hiragana! is a Japanese language camp.
“We’re the only high school in the entire state that has Japanese, so we’re excited to be able to share that. In the AEGIS Environmental Science and Biotechnology Camp, basically, they’re going to be outside in the morning doing some fieldwork. And so they might go to some local streams and forests and things like that to take samples. They’re going to learn to identify some plants and things like that and then they’ll do the lab part of that in the afternoon,” she said.
The Computer Science Camp teaches students about computer programming, game design, animations and other skills. In the Studio Arts Camp, students will learn about observational drawing, collage, painting, and ceramics, while the Engineering Camp will teach students about types of engineering, how to solder, and use design thinking.
“For some of them, it’s their first time really being away from their parents for more than a night or two,” she said. “Especially because a lot of these students did kind of, you know, have middle school through COVID. So they haven’t had a lot of experience to be away from their family.”
She said the dorm experience exposes them to students who may be in a different camp and allows them to bond around activities not held during the day.
“That’s a really formative experience, I think, for most students to get to kind of have that first taste of independence and get to meet people who they would not otherwise get to know. So that’s really good,” she said.
Parents will join the students on Saturday to share the students’ experiences.
Brown-Westmoreland said the camps are competitive and since it includes students from all over the state, applicants should take their applications seriously. If one were to pay out of pocket, she noted, the camp might cost $1,500 to $2,000, depending on where the student lived.
“So it’s a really, really important thing that if you are accepted for a camp, that you actually attend that camp too. So make sure you’re checking out the dates, that you don’t have any conflicts, that you can be there for the entire week and take part in all the activities. You’ll have a great time, you’ll absolutely love it,” she said.
To start the application process, students should complete the interest form at https:// asmsa.me/SummeratASMSA. For more information, email Brown-Westmoreland at outreach@asmsa.org or call 501622-5116.