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Friday, September 05, 2025
SparkForce camp builds career paths in STEM and welding
www.thefabricator.com: Walk into the metal fabrication facility at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, and the first thing you’ll notice is a massive sign that reads: “We make what it takes.”
I think it’s interesting and important how this program focused so specifically on interesting middle and high school kids in welding. It doesn’t seem like there was a lot of chaff in the program, as even the field trips were to pertinent locations such as tours of NASA fabrication facilities and of borax mines- something I wouldn’t think many middle and high schoolers would find interesting but which I’m very glad to see were a priority and picked for their value rather than for thrills- how many kids do you know who would be excited to see a borax mine? But despite, and because of these choices, I think this program does a really good job of having real value for its participants rather than being a summer camp where you learn how to weld. I think applying to STEM learning to the skill and bringing in modern applications like robots is a great way to get participants interested in not only welding itself but in its future.
I love this so much. A big reason I got into theater was because my school didn’t offer an actual woodshop class and I really wanted to learn more about building things. When I went to my school's counselor about this she encouraged me to join the theater production class at my school, which before I was hesitant about doing. I think it is super important to have hands-on elements of learning for students. When I worked at the local makerspace in my neighborhood, I was in charge of a lot of the educational programing and something I saw first hand was how active practice with tools and equipment always lead to kids remembering more as well as them being better able to use their knowledge in one area to evaluate problems they weren't explicitly taught how to fix. I have seen this big push in K-12 education to use computers more and more, and I really think this is to the detriment of students. Doing a computer simulated chemistry lab just doesn’t leave the same connection as actually picking up a graduated cylinder and mixing different chemicals.
As a camp kid I immediately clicked on this link because I would have loved to go to this kind of camp as a kid. One of the first things I did was look into how expensive the camp is and I was expecting it to be $200+ for a week especially since they are providing all the material and machines. I was happily surprised that it is $60 or $99 depending on which camp you want to go to. The fact that they are able to give that kind of extensive education where by the end of it these kids are doing basically everything by themselves for that price is incredible. Reading what some of the things they made by the end of the camp were (6ft tall statues and a chassis for a go-kart) made me very excited for these kids and kind of sad that I am not able to attend this camp myself.
I think it’s interesting and important how this program focused so specifically on interesting middle and high school kids in welding. It doesn’t seem like there was a lot of chaff in the program, as even the field trips were to pertinent locations such as tours of NASA fabrication facilities and of borax mines- something I wouldn’t think many middle and high schoolers would find interesting but which I’m very glad to see were a priority and picked for their value rather than for thrills- how many kids do you know who would be excited to see a borax mine? But despite, and because of these choices, I think this program does a really good job of having real value for its participants rather than being a summer camp where you learn how to weld. I think applying to STEM learning to the skill and bringing in modern applications like robots is a great way to get participants interested in not only welding itself but in its future.
ReplyDeleteI love this so much. A big reason I got into theater was because my school didn’t offer an actual woodshop class and I really wanted to learn more about building things. When I went to my school's counselor about this she encouraged me to join the theater production class at my school, which before I was hesitant about doing. I think it is super important to have hands-on elements of learning for students. When I worked at the local makerspace in my neighborhood, I was in charge of a lot of the educational programing and something I saw first hand was how active practice with tools and equipment always lead to kids remembering more as well as them being better able to use their knowledge in one area to evaluate problems they weren't explicitly taught how to fix. I have seen this big push in K-12 education to use computers more and more, and I really think this is to the detriment of students. Doing a computer simulated chemistry lab just doesn’t leave the same connection as actually picking up a graduated cylinder and mixing different chemicals.
ReplyDeleteAs a camp kid I immediately clicked on this link because I would have loved to go to this kind of camp as a kid. One of the first things I did was look into how expensive the camp is and I was expecting it to be $200+ for a week especially since they are providing all the material and machines. I was happily surprised that it is $60 or $99 depending on which camp you want to go to. The fact that they are able to give that kind of extensive education where by the end of it these kids are doing basically everything by themselves for that price is incredible. Reading what some of the things they made by the end of the camp were (6ft tall statues and a chassis for a go-kart) made me very excited for these kids and kind of sad that I am not able to attend this camp myself.
ReplyDelete