Hello, my name is Scott Brown and I am a 7th grade math teacher at South Charlotte Middle School in Charlotte, NC. A few years ago I noticed that many kids that came into my math classroom from the summer break seemed to have forgotten much of what they had learned the year before. I would spend the next 2 to 3 months re-teaching areas of math all over again. I attributed this problem to what is called the “Summer Setback”. I am very passionate about teaching kids math and receive alot of joy watching them learn and become successful in the classroom. In order to battle the Summer Setback, I decided to form a summer camp called Agent Einstein STEM Camp in which kids would learn and exercise their brains in the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and have great time at the same time. You see, I learned early on that kids that had a great time learning math in my classroom were excited to come back to my classroom, and as a result, were excited to learn the math and score higher on standardized tests. This would be my answer to trying to eliminate the Summer Setbacks.
I have been running the camp now for over 3 years and have had much success. The kids have a blast learning about how hovercraft work by building them , they learn about engineering designs by building structures out of various materials, they learning about landing rockets in specified areas by building rockets and shooting them at various predetermined calculated angles to hit a spot in a field, similar to the way that NASA landed a robot on an asteroid. The kids also have learned about Robotics, CSI, Rocks and Minerals indigenous to North Carolina, and heat transfers by making homemade ice cream. Indeed the kids have had a blast learning about science, technology, engineering and math. The key to our success…..get the kids excited to learn.
I am always looking for ways to get kids involved, engaged, and excited about education. Sometimes in order to reach kids, you have to think outside the box a little bit and set the bar higher. My endeavor is outside that box, but is a great idea for reaching kids and getting them excited about STEM. But I need your help. I want to acquire an antique fire truck and use it in parades and offer kids in our area rides in the parades to get them excited about our summer STEM camp. Our camp will be quickly identified as the fun science camp with the cool fire truck that gave kids rides. Remember, the key to success in education is getting the kids excited to be there. We will then use it to explain the technology behind how a fire truck centrifugal pump works at our camp. ( http://www.agenteinsteincamp.com )
I have also worked with several businesses in the area that are interested in sponsorship of my fire truck, allowing funds to be raised to provide scholarships to send underserved kids to our camp. This gives us just another platform, a very fun one at that, to get kids off the streets and excited about learning. This is an awesome opportunity for you to support kids education in a fun and exciting way. Please help me if you can with my fun but important fundraising effort. Thank you!