UAF offers 95 summer kids camps to community youth this season

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - The summer season is upon us and parents may be looking for ways to occupy their children’s time out of school.

In that spirit, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) is offering a series of summer kids camps to give youth an opportunity to pursue their passions.

A total of 95 camps are being offered this season, covering subjects from bugs to basketball to cooking to rifles.

Each camp lasts for one Monday-to-Friday week with some camps running from 9 to 5 each day, others in half-day increments.

Last week, beginning May 22, marked the start of the camps that will run through August 11.

Teachers include members of the community who specialize in their given fields.

These camps began nearly 20 years ago when a need was discovered in the community. At that time, summer sessions were primarily used by university students seeking credit courses.

According to Michelle Bartlett, Director of Summer Sessions and Lifelong Learning at UAF, “When I came on, I figured we could be doing that, but in addition, we could open up the campus to the community, and so one of the ways we did this was creating children’s camps, camps for children on this university campus during the summertime. The summer was not really a very busy time, and there’s a myriad of resources that we could use for that purpose.”

More than 1,300 students have registered so far this summer, and there’s still space in many camps.

More information can be found at the UAF Summer Sessions 2023 Kids Camps website.

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