25 Jul Middle schoolers explore the wide world of STEM at summer camp

Students practice their pipetting skills with a stem cell activity at the Discovery Building.

From July 17-21, around 50 middle schoolers from the Madison Metropolitan School District participated in the WI STEM Explorations Camp on the UW-Madison campus.

The 7th grade students were nominated by their science teachers to attend the week-long day camp offered through the Madison School & Community Recreation (MSCR) program.

This unique camp, organized by the Morgridge Community Engagement Team, allowed them to experience a variety of hands-on activities in different labs at different sites across the UW campus. Through speaking with a diverse group of scientists and researchers, they learned that science is more than just lab coats and pipettes — though they had plenty of opportunity to do that, too — and there are many avenues to a STEM career.

From stem cells to dairy cows, the students gained exposure to the many flavors of science and developed a bit of their own science identity along the way.

Check out some of the students in action in these additional photos.