San Bernardino>>About 150 African-American and Latino boys from middle schools across San Bernardino are learning technology skills this summer at Cal State San Bernardino as part of the Verizon Innovative Learning Camp.
This is the second straight year that CSUSB, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, is playing host to the Verizon Innovative Learning Camp. The university is of one of 17 institutions around the country. This year CSUSB has held two camps, June 19-23, July 10-14 and a third camp - July 17-21. Each session hosts 50 boys.
Cal State San Bernardino, which was the first CSU campus to host the Verizon Innovative Learning Camp, was joined by Cal State Los Angeles.
During the first camp, the MdBio Foundation partnered with Verizon and brought the Verizon Innovative Learning Explorer Lab to campus on June 22 for the middle schoolers.
The explorer lab is a shared immersive learning experience that combines movie-quality video, special effects, and hands-on educational gaming to create a learning environment that gets kids excited about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) – right in the school parking lot.
The students experienced a shared immersive learning experience of light, sound and video that took them to Mars on board the explorer lab. Students watched a five-minute video about the solar system and human space exploration. They then received tablets and were presented with engineering challenges to design and maneuver their rovers over the Martian surface.
Later this month, eight boys chosen from last year’s program will attend a special youth summit in San Francisco. For most of them, it will be the first time flying in an airplane. The youth summit will be aimed at inspiring the youths to be early adopters and leaders in emerging technological trends such as wearable technology, virtual reality, 3D printing and the Internet.