HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Cosmosphere has always been a place for youth to come and learn about space and science. Most of the camps were held during the summer months when school was out, but that has been changing over the past several years.
“We’ve spent a lot of time and effort to upgrade our educational facilities and camp programming, and we have opportunities for kids pretty much all year-round,”Cosmosphere President Jim Remar said. “We have schools from all over that have taken our camps during the school year.”
Remar says that students can come to camp even if they may not have the financial means to do so as the museum has worked hard on a scholarship program. The camp is also structured to keep participants moving up the ladder in space studies.
“Each one kind of builds on the other,” Remar said. “We’re trying to create an opportunity and environment where they learn something one year and what they learn that year, they take that and carry it over.”
While most campers take the experience of camp as a fun event, there are those alumni that have taken it all the way to the space program.
“It's been incredible to follow our former campers and counselors,” Remar said. “To watch them go on to do awesome things.”
Remar also noted that, not only are the camps becoming more popular, the space museum has seen near-record crowds over the past year. With space travel in the news as much as it currently is, he hopes that trend will continue.
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