The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will help propel Arkansas’ youth into successful futures in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), thanks to a grant from The Harris Foundation and ExxonMobil.

The $50,000 grant enables UALR’s Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT) to host a free two-week summer camp for middle school students July 10-22. It will be one of 10 ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camps taking place around the country. This is EIT’s eighth consecutive year hosting the camp.

Led by Executive Camp Director and EIT Assistant Dean Vernard Henley, Jr., the two-week residential summer camp will host 36 sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students from all over the state. These STEM-curious attendees will participate in experiments, go on field excursions to reinforce the project-based curriculum, and problem solve around the theme “Imagineering Your Future.”

Rugenal Anderson-Lindsey, a veteran middle school educator, will serve as camp director. Henley and Anderson-Lindsey will give traditionally underrepresented groups access to STEM knowledge and opportunities. Camp leaders will place special recruiting emphasis on the state’s most diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.

Additionally, UALR students, particularly those involved in the African American Male Initiative, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the Hispanic/Latino Initiative, will be selected as group leaders for the camp.

Participants will stay on campus and attend classes and labs in UALR’s state-of-the-art instructional spaces. These classroom experiences will be interdisciplinary and interactive, covering math, chemistry, biology, physical science, engineering design, technology, and English.

The students will also tackle a major hands-on collaborative project on environmental engineering. When they’re not engaging in these lessons, the students will visit culturally and scientifically significant sites that are directly related to their camp project.

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In the upper right photo, past participants of the ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp at UALR test structural engineering skills by building a water tower.