Just because summer is on the way, that doesn’t mean the learning needs to stop — and that’s exactly why Cullman City Schools is hosting its annual Summer STEM Camp for students this July.

The Summer STEM Camp is for students in grades K-8. It will be held from 8 a.m. until noon on July 7-10 and July 14-17. It will be hosted at East Elementary School. July 10 will be a STEM water play day, while July 17 will include a field trip to the Cook Museum of Natural Sciences.

The deadline to submit an application to attend is Thursday, May 1. Visit the online form to apply: https://forms.gle/8MQsNuvmqTYavi7ZA.

The program returns for its second year as part of a partnership between Cullman Parks & Recreation and Cullman City Schools. The camp is free to students in the City of Cullman, Cullman County, area private schools and homeschool programs. The goal of the STEM camp is to expand students’ knowledge of STEM and career development skills, emphasizing teamwork, collaboration, leadership, critical thinking, problem-solving and communication.

“Through hands-on experiments, projects and exploration of robotics, coding, and engineering concepts, the camp seeks to inspire and engage students in STEM,” camp director Courtney Waters explained.

Some things students will learn during the camp include a robotics exploration, with students actually able to build their own robots and write code for them to perform tasks like shooting a basketball into a hoop. The STEM water challenges will have students work together and explore forces and motion, with a focus on gravity. Activities include racing to transport water between buckets, creating water slides and launching water rockets.

Engineering portions of the camp will allow students to explore the engineering design process to design and build their own roller coasters. There will also be gardening activities, with students learning the basics of decomposition and ecosystems to build compost bins and promote recycling and resource sustainability.