Summer@IMSA – Aurora Campus

Summer@IMSA – Aurora Campus offers hands-on challenges, experiments, and creative problem-solving activities across multiple themed camps. Participants may analyze real Mars mission data, design and engineer spacecraft, build scale models, design and measure real-world projects, and solve problems like engineers and mathematicians. Activities also include designing road systems and recycling trucks, understanding arthroscopic techniques, exploring the engineering involved in paint, building a battery, investigating what makes objects move, experimenting with speed and force, creating their own instruments, exploring patterns and symmetry, exploring optical illusions, composing original tunes, creating colorful designs, designing and building their own tractors, investigating soil and plant health, experimenting with crop growth, transforming creative ideas into real prototypes, and brainstorming, building, and testing designs. Some sessions include coding missions and challenges with Sphero BOLT robots, solving programming puzzles, and learning coding concepts such as variables, loops, functions, and conditional statements.

• Ages: 6–13 years old
• Schedule: Explore Day Camps by Week, Monday–Friday, with options the weeks of June 8–12, June 22–26, July 6–10, July 13–17, and July 20–24

Summer@IMSA – Aurora Campus uses STEM-based curricula created by Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) Curriculum Specialists and aligned with NGSS science and engineering standards and practices. Programs are taught by SITE Interns, supported by IMSA STEMbassador students, and mentored by IMSA Curriculum Writer and Professional Development Specialists and Faculty, with IMSA STEMbassadors working as group leaders in a near-peer learning model. Families register each child for the grade they will be entering in the 2026–2027 school year. The program includes multiple themed options, such as Time Travelers: Medieval STEM Adventures, Mars Explorers: Journey to the Red Planet, Storybook STEM: Adventures that Jump off the Page, Climate Quest: Build, Discover, Save!, Sphero Heroes: Coding Adventures! using Sphero BOLT robots, Engineering in the Modern World, Full-Speed STEM: Discovering Things that Go, STEMphony of Art, Manufacturing & Product Development, and Agriculture Adventures: Innovation on the Farm, organized by specific weeks and grade bands.

IMSA’s mission is to ignite and nurture creative, ethical, scientific minds that advance the human condition. IMSA is a teaching and learning laboratory created by the State of Illinois, is an independent state agency governed by an appointed Board of Trustees, and has a budget that is part of the Illinois higher education system. Youth Outreach Programs at IMSA include student enrichment such as summer camps and entrepreneurship and makerspace education. IMSA is ranked the #1 college preparatory public high school in Illinois and #1 STEM high school in Illinois by Niche.com and has been named among the top 40 public and private college preparatory institutions in the world by The Wall Street Journal. The leadership team includes Dr. Evan M. Glazer, President; April Wells, Director of Admissions; Clarissa Jimenez, Admissions Specialist; Simone Alexander, Admissions Counselor; and Lisa Linsner, Administrative Assistant.

Last updated January 15, 2026.