Free Summer Camps Aim to Reduce Learning Loss Among At-Risk Youth

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Johnstown, PA (June 8,2016)–For many disadvantaged students, summer is not only a break from school, it’s a break from learning. Some even experience a loss of reading and math skills over the summer months. Summer learning loss is one of the most significant causes of the achievement gap between lower and higher income children and may even contribute to dropout rates.

To help address the issue, The Learning Lamp will offer six weeks of FREE summer camp beginning June 13 and continuing through August 4. Summer camp is offered for students in grades K-8 in the Moxham, Prospect and Oakhurst neighborhoods. The camps are an extension of The Learning Lamp’s After School Outreach Program, which serves the same neighborhoods during the school year. Sessions will be filled with fun, engaging activities and a field trip centered around two themes, “The Sky is the Limit,” and “STEAM.” Outreach summer camps are made possible through generous grants from Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, Lockheed Martin Foundation and the Jacob Fend Foundation.

• Camps in Moxham will take place June 13-23 at the Park Avenue United Methodist Church
• Prospect camps take place July 11-21 at the Prospect Community Center
• Camps in Oakhurst will be held July 25-August 4 at the Oakhurst Community Center

All camps run Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kids are welcome to attend any camp without prior registration, but parents must sign a consent form.

“The Sky is the Limit” is the theme of the first week of summer camp. Activities include arts and crafts, fun in the sun, nutrition and physical fitness and hands-on science projects from Asset Stem Education™. Grades K-2 will explore the engineering of bubbles with “Bubble Bonanza.” Campers will investigate different materials, make bubble wands and display their creations at a Bubble Bonanza Showcase. Grades 3-5 will blast off into aeronautical engineering with “Sky’s the Limit.” Kids will design models of flying technologies used by NASA to collect aerial photographs and learn about the harsh environments on Earth that scientists may face in space. Grades 6-8 will examine biomechanical engineering with “Put a Lid on it.” The middle school-aged group will actually design their own helmets for crash-test dummies.

STEAM is the central theme of the second week of camp activities. STEAM focuses on science, technology, engineering, arts and design, and mathematics. Campers will participate in 30-minute physical activities that use games like hopscotch to practice math and vocabulary skills, nutrition classes promoting nutritious taste-testing, food safety and smoothie making and lastly, a series of 45-minute specialized yoga sessions for kids.

At the end of the two-week series of summer camps, children will visit Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. The science center is dedicated to education, entertaining and inspiring youth through interactive programs in science, sports and technology. Current exhibits include “Exploration Station,” “Roboworld™” and “SpacePlace.”

Summer learning opportunities are especially critical for children who are at increased risk of school failure.

Research shows that when children enter kindergarten, a middle-income child already has a six-month lead over a child from a lower-income household because of limited access to early reading materials and a quality preschool education. Regardless of learning that occurs from September to June, that achievement gap tends to widen over the summer.

For details on the Learning Lamp’s free summer camp programs, contact 814-262-0732 extension 228 or visit thelearninglamp.org.

The Learning Lamp is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage all children in the support they need to succeed. We deliver high quality programs that are affordable and accessible to families of all income levels. The Learning Lamp served 30,711 children from 57 school districts and 53 non-public and private schools and other organizations in 17 Pennsylvania counties and one county in Maryland in 2015.

Our programs include: one-to-one tutoring; before/after school programs; portable classrooms aimed at building math and science skills; alternative education programs for at-risk students; evidence-based prevention programs; online learning and credit recovery; SAT preparation; educationally-focused child care; literacy-based preschool programs; and grant writing and project consulting for schools.