Summer Camp Nurtures Young Innovators

Imagine building a guitar from scratch, creating a collage masterpiece, singing new words to an old song for the first time, building a racecar, finding a perfect muse for a photography project or innovating a brand new video game.

Now imagine all of these activities occurring across two campuses in Burlingame and Hillsborough by a group of young innovators over the course of a single week. Welcome to Camp Galileo and Galileo Summer Quest.

At both Camp Galileo in Burlingame and Galileo Summer Quest in Hillsborough, campers are raising the bar on the bounds of creativity.

Camp Galileo at serves students in kindergarten through fifth grades and Galileo Summer Quest at Crystal Springs Uplands School serves students entering fifth through eight grades.

The camps aim to give students the tools they need to innovate, reminding them that mistakes are ok—even good—and important tools. They learn to collaborate and brainstorm, try out ideas, rework concepts that fail and rebuild.

“It’s creating innovators and sort of helping kids with visions make those into realities,” said Camp Galileo Burlingame Director Elishama Goldfarb. “We really support the students in giving them the tools they need to make what they want, and we also support them by giving them good pieces of knowledge in each area.”

Each week at Camp Galileo has a theme, around which all the activities revolve. During Greek week, all the programming touched upon the Olympics and mythology. Music week, known as Camp Galileo Rocks, involved building guitars and creating music-inspired artwork.

The camp has four themes, and cycles through the series twice over the summer.

Using the Galileo method—a reworked scientific method—campers create art and science projects with the goal of expanding their horizons and making the world a better place.

At Galileo Summer Quest, campers pick from different majors each week, such as photography or cartooning.

“[It’s] all about taking something from the ideation stage to the being about to share it out as something that is going to improve the worlds,” said Summer Quest Hillsborough Director Meg Wells. “[We] encourage campers to think about what the world needs and how to make it a better place…empowering campers that those ideas are worth sharing, that they are actors in the world.”

She said anything from a video game to a cartoon has the potential for a powerful impact, and staff makes sure campers know that. They then go through the steps of identifying the solution or design and testing and reflecting and redesigning, until they have their finished product.

“We’re trying to…install a mindset in campers that mistakes are ok and great because they help you get to the next stage,” Wells said.

Both Galileo camps also have typical summer camp activities, like capture the flag, opening ceremonies and cheers and songs.

The Galileo team works throughout the year building curriculum, developing new themes and ideas each year for their camps spread across the Bay Area. Most of the instructors work in education during the school year, and many younger staff members are in or entering college in the field of education.

“We have fun just like all the other summer camps, but our staff are more prepared to educate kids during the summer,” Goldfarb said.

The staff to camper ratio is about 6-to-1 for younger campers and 8-to-1 for older campers. Although each theme or major lasts one week, many campers return for multiple weeks through the summer, and even more campers come back year after year.

“There’s a little magic that happens here and it’s really cool,” said Galileo Learning's Marketing and Communications Manager Julie Eglington. “At every single moment in every single classroom, there is something awesome happening.”

For more information on Camp Galileo Burlingame, click here.

For more information on Summer Quest Hillsborough, click here.

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