Summer Camps

Click each section below to explore all of our exciting camp offerings for the Summer of 2018! Members, don't forget to check your email for advance registration links. General registration opens March 20. 

Our City Our Future (Sold out)

In The DoSeum, your little ones can do more than think the future-- they can imagine, prepare, make-believe, and create. Campers will explore exhibits Dream Tomorrow Today, Little Town, and eXplore to construct knowledge and understanding of their present community. Instructors will facilitate discussions about communities they’ve seen and their roles as citizens. Through hands-on play and exploration, campers will discover challenges that face our future and participate in independent and collaborative city building activities.

Young children are the future, so let’s build their confidence and understanding that every person has the power to impact the world!

Little Explorers (SOLD OUT)

Sometimes, the best places to explore are right next door! In Little Explorers, your campers will learn all about their own community, how it functions, and how they can affect its future. Through our exhibits Little Town and Dream Tomorrow Today, campers will learn about the responsibilities of family, school, and community helpers and how they all rely on each other. We will discuss how jobs and roles that we see today will be different in the future. Children will identify their interests and learn to articulate what careers they might like to have in the future that will have a positive, lasting effect on the world.

Water Water Everywhere (SOLD OUT)

Who says you can’t splash your way into learning? Water, Water Everywhere provides an opportunity for kids to explore water through scientific investigations. They’ll primarily engage with our Water Works Gallery to learn all about properties of water, sinking vs. floating, and how water can be used as an energy resource. They will also leave with an understanding of the importance of water conservation and how they can help save our planet.

Invention Lab (sold out)

Does your child have what it takes to be the next Thomas Edison or Mary Anderson?  Of course they DO! From Rosie Revere Engineer to Marvelous Mattie, campers will discover qualities of every great inventor—innovation, creativity, perseverance, and inspiration.  This camp will provide opportunities for kids to connect to real-life inventors and characters in literature and see how inventions can make the world better.  They will stretch their cognitive muscles through thinking, designing, testing, improving, and retesting their inventions.   Your little inventors will bring home their contraptions and creations and be ready to change the world. 

Paint Your Future (sold out)

Make the future colorful, creative, and unique! In Paint Your Future, instructors will nurture campers’ self-expression and creativity through hands-on integration of art and literature. Campers will create their own open-ended art pieces using various art techniques and mediums inspired by notable children’s illustrators. Through the creation of art, they will also develop their fine motor skills, boost their self-confidence, and learn to take risks. Let your child come paint their way to the future and watch them become the next generation of independent, flexible, creative thinkers.

Mix it Up to Create What (SOLD OUT)

Want to make the ultimate batch of Play-Dough? Then you might be ready to become a junior engineer! In Mix it Up to Create What, campers will learn the fundamentals of chemicals. They’ll learn about solids vs. liquids and how they can mix them to create something new.

Maybe even the perfect Play-Dough! They will engage in exploring properties of different materials commonly found around the house, discovering the best process for the perfect product, and comparing your products with that of your new friends makes for a week of learning and laughing. Campers will have the opportunity to connect these activities to the DoSeum own STEM-based create and discover programs.

Be the Future (SOLD OUT)

While San Antonio’s Tricentennial invites kids to celebrate our city’s past, The DoSeum is welcoming kids to imagine our future! In Be The Future, campers will envision their future career possibilities based on an exploration of various fields of study and current areas of need. They will determine how they can contribute to society through making their own tools and accessories for their chosen career. They will also create a fictional narrative about their future career and how it will impact our future society. Campers will Be the Future through sharing their fictional narratives during a Career Fair at The DoSeum.

A Play-Dough Process (SOLD OUT)

Play-Dough is the perfect tool for scientific investigation. It’s colorful, stretchy, and smooth. You can roll it, shape it, and create all sorts of shapes and features. Plus, it’s fun! In this camp, kids will learn about chemical engineers and their role in creating steps to making substances, like playdough, better. As they explore what chemical engineers do, they will investigate “solids” and “liquids” and mix them together to observe how they react. Through these investigations, kids will play the role of chemical engineer and use what they discovered to create their own steps to make their own best possible play dough product to share at home.

Big Futures (sold out)

In Big Futures, kids will take the next step in planning their futures by making tangible pieces of art that define their goals, dreams, and aspirations for the future. Children will work in teams to create large scale murals and sculptures that respond to their collective vision of the future. As a starting point, children will take a deep dive into our summer exhibit “Dream Tomorrow Today,” which will be a touch point for ideas and inspiration. Giving kids the opportunity to reflect on “future thinking” practices and skills. Their individual works will help each participant contribute ideas to the large format works the group will create.

Hybrid Futures (art camp) | Ages 7-10 (June) & 8-11 (August) | sold out

In Hybrid Futures, children will combine art and science to understand how creativity and innovation are intertwined. By exploring artistic practices and creative processes, they will understand how these skills can be translated to real world necessities. These formulas or frameworks will serve to give them steps that ensure the creation of ideas that bring them successfully to create maquettes and prototypes of their hybrid creations. Kids will create 3 unique maker/art projects that practice creativity by exploring observations skill and methods that lead to hybrid creations. The range of results could be the fantastic or the whimsical of fantasy creatures or comic book heroes or be sourced in the practicality of engineering and the sciences.

It’s All About the Design | Ages 7-10 | sold out

Calling all junior engineers! Can you design a prototype then build a model? Of course you can. Get ready for a real-world engineering challenge! Campers will act as real- world engineers by becoming junior experts at the construction of beam, arch, and suspension bridges while exploring concepts such as balance, motion, push, pull, and materials science. Activities and lessons explored in this camp are based on the nationally-renown “Engineering is Elementary” curriculum developed by the Boston Museum of Science. Campers will have the opportunity to connect these activities to the DoSeum own STEM-based exhibits. Resources needed for this camp are an imagination, ability to laugh out loud, and curiosity!

Splish, Splash, STEM! | Ages 8-11 | sold out

Learning all about the environment is great, but we need our junior environmental engineers to help save the world! As a junior environmental engineer, campers will work with the eco-pond and mini river located on the DoSeum property to analyze water and small animals. They will use tools to explore, design, and test and collect data. And, of course splashing in water is a necessity on a hot summer day. Requirements needed for this camp are a desire to examine things in a natural setting, to work with new friends to explore water, and to get wet when necessary all in the name of learning and having fun.

Rolling R’s (art camp) | Ages 8-11 | sold out

Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, and Recycle for a Robust future! Campers will think eco-friendly by creating pieces of art using four machines created by Precious Plastic. They will learn to make art with recycled plastic, a practice that will allow them to learn, create, and help make lasting environmental change. We will help them embrace the art of upcycling: the act of taking discarded objects or material in such a way as to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original. In this creative art- based camp, kids will combine design and art skills to make objects not only for themselves but for other children to use when visiting the DoSeum.

Investigators of Tomorrow (maker camp) | Ages 8-11

At The DoSeum, kids have the opportunity to explore so many areas concepts of science, technology, math, arts, and literacy, so can you imagine what they’ll be able to investigate in the future? Investigators of Tomorrow will empower campers with the skills and tools that they will be able to use when investigating and exploring future technologies. They will learn how to program microbits that will help them lead scientific investigations of their world, collect and analyze data, and share their findings with others. Kids will discover that they can use technology to inform future decisions aligned to their interests.

Structure Constructors (maker camp) | Ages 8-11 | sold out

In Structure Constructors, campers will work as a team to create an outdoor wire structure that will be displayed at The DoSeum. By critically analyzing existing structures for meaning, kids will learn how they can make their structure have a message related to the future. Kids will learn about architectural concepts to ensure that their structure is well-built and long-lasting for all our future DoSeum guests to enjoy!