As technology continues to evolve exponentially, our modern world is changing at a dizzying pace. For today’s children—the rising generation of leaders—keeping up with this rapid change requires strong creative thinking skills and the ability to work together in order to tackle emerging challenges with innovative solutions. Unfortunately, many traditional school curricula have been slow to adapt, inadequately fostering the problem-solving abilities that kids will need to excel in the future.
The innovation program at Camp Tuku is designed to offer the type of outside-the-box learning that is often missing in the classroom. Our fun, engaging, team-oriented activities will nurture children’s innate senses of curiosity and creativity to help them cultivate an innovative mindset. Our curriculum was developed based on the concepts and practices of the acclaimed Odyssey of the Mind program, which has been encouraging students to solve challenging problems with creative solutions for more than 40 years. Like Odyssey of the Mind, we seek to guide campers in approaching challenges with resourcefulness, critical thinking, an open mind, and a collaborative spirit.
Our innovation program consists of two types of exercises designed to flex campers’ creative muscles:
- Daily spontaneous creativity challenges, which include verbal and hands-on activities that will expand the ways that campers think and approach problems.
- “Reimagination” exercises consisting of week-long projects that challenge teams of campers to redesign an everyday object, such as a shopping cart, refrigerator, or clothing hanger. In doing so, campers will use a variety of techniques—ranging from crocheting to origami folding to 3D printing—to devise a new, creative, and possibly more effective way of fulfilling the object’s purpose. Reimagination exercises will help campers identify the elements of successful design and generate ideas for future creations, while encouraging them to question the standard methods of performing everyday tasks.
