R4 Creating hosts students for summer camp

R4 Creating wrapped up another of its STEM Expedition Summer Program camps last week at the Balloon Museum in Albuquerque.

Dr. Shelly Gruenig, the executive director of R4 Creating, said 100 students earned scholarships to the camp, which was instructed by 20 highly trained R4 student interns who worked alongside summer camp staff.

Gruenig founded R4, originally known as the Rio Rancho Robo Runners, in 2005 and has been offering championship STEM/STEAM programming in Sandoval County at the career training center on Sara Road. She is focused on programs to build the young STEM/STEAM workforce, support educators with emerging technologies and to provide thought leadership in order to link industry with their future workforce.

At the camp, students ages 6-17 participated in science, technology, engineering and math activities including robotics, engineering, 3D printing, Girls Into Tech, stop motion animation and STEAM Discovery. Most of the students had never participated in a STEM camp before.

“We’re partnering with the city of Albuquerque and the state legislature to offer scholarships to our camps,” Gruenig said. “So we gave away 100 scholarships. These kids come from everywhere, from local community centers that are partnering, to people that just received information from word going around that we had these great scholarships available. We have a couple of children’s homes here. So a lot of these kids come from experiences where they’ve never done anything like this before. And that’s pretty special.”

Gruenig said the lessons engaged students and got them excited considering future careers and opportunities where they could be scientists and engineers.