A summer camp featuring the Mars Rover and Metallica is a match made in heaven.
Aiken Technical College is holding Cyber Power Camp: Mars Rover Mission Edition from June 9 through 13. It will teach coding, robotics, and tech innovations.
“What we were focusing on really was cybersecurity careers and those things we’re already doing. The idea really was to start building a better and stronger pipeline anywhere we can for cyber careers, those things within computer technology,” Chad Crumbaker, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Workforce Innovation, explained for ABD.
The camp invited rising eighth through twelfth-grade students who are proficient in algebra or higher levels of math.
Including eighth graders is part of an ongoing trend to engage middle school students to consider their career goals.
“How can we really touch and try to get involved with younger students that aren’t already college students, so then they’ll be interested in our program, but really in the careers that they could explore,” said Crumbaker. “We really wanted to go down a little younger so that we could get kids involved and interested and hands-on with how math works together to create something cool, like a Mars Rover, that they can actually program and do things with.”
It also exposes the younger students to possibilities without commitment. If a student explores a career path, but then decides it is not a good fit, they have time to investigate other avenues.
An additional benefit is that it engages their brain to stay active during summer vacation breaks, stemming the “summer slide,” a decline in academic skills. The loss can be most noticeable in math and reading proficiencies.
Crumbaker said the trick is to sneak education into a fun activity.
“What it is for us is to use what they call gamification, so you learn through gaming, basically,” he said. “We can do something and have something deliverable in a few days that’s interesting, but also learning, and I think that’s really how you address it. It just keeps throwing things at them.”
If robotics and the Mars Rover are not enough of a draw, there is also the cachet of associating with an internationally known rock band, thanks to the Metallica Scholars Initiative.
“That’s just a cool part, and it’s awesome what the band’s doing to give back, to try to really promote technical education in the skill trades and particularly in their concert series. You know how important it is to them being successful, I think that’s really awesome what they’re doing on that front.”
Through its foundation, the band funds this workforce education initiative specifically to support career and technical education programs at 42 schools across 33 states, including Aiken Tech. The goal is to ensure students interested in entering a traditional trade as a career have the educational programs that provide the skills and services.
Learn more about the Metallica Scholars program at Aiken Tech at www.atc.edu/MetallicaScholars
Information about the Metallica Foundation and its programs is available at www.allwithinmyhands.org/
