STEM SHOWCASE: Students take part in Scratch Maker Camp at Centro

Students attending Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos’ Scratch Maker Camp showed off their creations Friday afternoon.

Campers took part in the STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — focused week-long session taking place from July 11- 15, which provided them an opportunity to gain skills, experience coding and build structures.

Sean Justice, associate professor of art education at Texas State University, said the Scratch Maker Camp gave students a chance to connect with STEM and STEAM learning by providing them an opportunity to be around materials such as motors, batteries, lights, circuits and computers throughout the camp.

“Just by having [the materials available] and then encouraging the kids in a friendly way, a playful way to make something cool, it potentially fires up their imagination,” said Justice, who founded Families Learning Together — a community education project that teaches computational thinking through art, storytelling and citizen science — which put on the week-long camp at Centro. “For some kids, it really works as far as their imagination. For other kids, they may not be so interested in that particular mix of different kinds of materials. But, you never know until you make it available and you invite them in.”

The Scratch Maker Camp is among many camps taking place at Centro this summer, including arts and music focused classes. Centro offers ArtSpace & Camp Ole, piano lessons and youth mariachi. The camps are funded through grants from the City of San Marcos, San

Marcos Arts Commission and The Burdine Johnson Foundation.

“It is really rewarding to be able to provide these [camps] to the kids because a lot of kids would just be at home with nothing else to do,” Centro Program Coordinator Gloria Salazar said. “So, they get to come here, it is an enriching program depending on what program they’re in.”

“We’re glad to be able to bring as much as we can into the community for the kids to have something to do,” Salazar added. “Art is a very personal expression and all these kids have gone through COVID and they need an expression … So we’re glad to be able to provide that to all of the kids.”

Justice said being able to put on learning opportunities such as the Scratch Maker Camp involves community support and funding.

“It depends on the families being proactive and looking for these things and then joining,” Justice said. “They don’t cost money but we need funding from the city and we need funding from other granting organizations. Texas State University provides us a fair amount of funding. This particular week was funded by the ACCEYSS Network … In order to do these kinds of things, we need support from families, which means just coming and being aware of it. Then, we also need support from public institutions that will support it.”

Eight students took part in this week’s Scratch Maker Camp. Nidia Mendoza, a camp facilitator, said it’s amazing to see how quickly the kids learned throughout the event.

“For these camps we’re trying to get them interested in STEM careers,” Mendoza said. “So, getting them to think like engineers, the designing process and all that. They were able to get their hands on some motors, some circuits. They were really just able to build things from model buildings to small simple circuits.”

Students attending Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos’ Scratch Maker Camp pose for a photo in front of a town they built during the camp. Pictured from left to right, Cristina Flores, Scratch Maker Camp Co-Director Jill Picou, Gavin Burrows, Journey Vazques, San Marcos City Council Member Alyssa Garza, Shasha Moncada, Parker Cassidy, Scratch Maker Camp Co-Director Nidia Mendoza, Lilliana Price and Centro Board President Amanda Rodriguez. Daily Record photo by Nick Castillo

Mendoza added that it’s indescribable to watch the kids as they showed off their finished work on Friday.

“I’m proud of myself because of how proud they are for themselves,” Mendoza said. “It’s like, I was able to teach them how to do this stuff without doing it for them.”

“It’s amazing watching what kids are capable of, and then it just being in a week,” Mendoza added. “These kids really grasped concepts really quickly, really easily. Like, wow, I’m actually making a difference in these students’ lives and their future.”