Students culminated six weeks of learning how to live healthy and apply science, technology, engineering and math Wednesday when parents joined them in playing games, constructing cars from household products and learning how to cook healthy food.
For six weeks, more than 300 students from the Gilroy Unified School District elementary and middle schools have attended Super Power Summer Camp, where they learned applicable uses of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs and healthy living techniques.
Site Supervisor Daphne Cortez with the Eliot Elementary School Super Power Summer Camp said the program operates on grant money from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and is free for students in the first through eighth grades. Summer camps run June 22 through Aug. 2 from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and the afterschool program runs from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the school year.
With 2013 being the first year of focusing on STEM programs, Cortez said Super Power chose to add it into the mix because it is “the way of the future.”
“We wanted students to be more engaged,” she said. “This is where our future is going and it is more about having students be invested, diving in and being enthusiastic about what they do.”
Cortez said educational summer camps address the issue of students forgetting what they learn during the school year.
“It is really essential to have kids learning instead of having them at home suffering from summer learning loss,” Cortez said. “Every summer they (stop learning) they are falling further and further behind.”
Beyond learning, campers also get to be with their friends from school and play silly games such the egg-and-spoon race and a toilet paper-wrapping competition.
“You get to learn new stuff about cars and building and have a good time with friends,” 10-year-old Francy Gonzalez from Eliot Elementary School said. “We also got to build our own instruments and cook healthy food.”
Unlike traditional schooling, Cortez said Super Power Summer Camps engage students with what they are learning instead of having students sit and read in a classroom.
For parents such as 37-year-old Carmen Vasquez whose daughter Brenda Jimenez, 8, and niece Daisy Sanchez, 7, attend Las Animas Elementary School, Super Power Summer Camp is an attractive option.
“When I went to the meeting, I heard about what they will learn. I think it is good for them to try new things and learn to eat good food,” Vasquez said. “I like it, it is my daughter’s first year here, but I want her to go again.”
Similarly, the camp functions as a way for parents to have worry-free care for their children during the summer. Gilroyan Lori Rollins, 36, said she was attracted to the camps because it’s compatible with her work schedule.
“Originally it was nice for working, because my kids didn’t have to go to daycare, but they ended up liking it and they are learning a lot,” Rollins said. “I love how good they are with the kids and safe they are.”
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