Learning Landscapes: The Education Spectrum from Camps to Classrooms

Abstract

Summer camps and school classrooms are intersecting institutions, both complementing the learning lives of young people. Each summer at camp children enjoy recreational, artistic, nature, and adventure programs that can help them acquire important skills that are not always or explicitly taught in the classroom. Campers practice sportsmanship, positive peer relations, social skills, and a sense of belonging. These activities develop the mindsets and noncognitive factors necessary to reduce summer learning loss and increase academic achievement when campers once again return to school as students in the fall. Including summer camps as a landscape on the education spectrum is essential to shaping more appropriate versions of teaching and learning—versions open to embracing and valuing all settings and the links that exist between these spaces.