This week at Project Ember we welcome our biggest group yet, with 25 campers joining us for the creation of wild and wonderful new worlds. We are super stoked to have three alumni campers with us this week, sharing their skills and expertise with those who are new to Project Ember and the world of maker-focussed project-based learning. A big part of our program is to challenge our alumni campers, encouraging them to try harder than they have before, to work outside of their comfort zone and to be the best camper and teammate they can be - a Project Ember Ambassador if you will (and perhaps a Junior Collaborator in the making?!)
Our three alumni campers; Robert, Arson and Tasso recapping their tool knowledge with Josh
We are also very excited to welcome some new (and not so new) faces - Roe, Aakash and Benjamin - into the Project Ember family, as they join us as Collaborators this week, bringing with them a bucket load of experience and enthusiasm. All three have a wealth of educational, community and maker-focussed experience; Benjamin’s love of learning has steered him towards many interesting projects and ventures (we’re pleased to be able to add Project Ember to the list!) His background is in architecture, building off-grid sustainable homes - Earthships (you should check them out), and has worked with young people as an academic youth mentor. Aakash, a firm friend of Project Ember, returns this week, bringing his extensive experience of working with young people as a High School Physics teacher and an engineering prowess to watch out for! And last, but by no means least, we are excited to introduce you to Roe, whose passions lie in connection and community. Roe will be enriching our camp experience with her infectious enthusiasm, intuitive sense and instinctive understanding of the needs of young people.
We began the week in the time honoured tradition of getting-to-know you games, group agreements, expectations and goals. The campers highlighted the importance of ‘learning new things’ and ‘thinking outside the box’ as their key goals for the week, which we couldn’t be happier about! Cultivating curiosity is one of our guiding principles and we are passionate about creating an authentic environment for young people to explore, experiment, challenge the status quo and stretch their imagination to its limits. This week’s project provides the perfect opportunity to do just that, but before we tell you what it is, here are a few snaps of our campers during tool training…
PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT TIME: this week we are building a time machine! We are leaving the finer details up to the imaginations of our campers, but for now we can confirm that we will be travelling both to the past and the future, so hold on to your hats!
* Huge apologies to Session B campers and their families for the delay in this blog post. We’ve been experiencing a few technical difficulties here at Project Ember HQ (but we’re all sorted now). Thank you for your patience!