Summer camp lifts-off at La Salle

Graduate education students gained hands-on teaching experience at the space-themed Summer STEAM Enrichment Camp.  

Campers at the space-themed 2025 Summer STEAM Enrichment Camp learned and played in classrooms that graduate education students had planned and decorated to look like spaceships, distant planets and far away galaxies.

Education students at La Salle University and students entering grades K – 9 had an out-of-this-world experience at this year’s space-themed Summer STEAM Enrichment Camp.   

From June 30 to July 18, La Salle students taught STEAM-based (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) lessons to campers in the mornings. In the afternoons campers enjoyed traditional camp activities and special events, including interactive science-based workshops, dance performances, and a field day.   

“The camp provides La Salle graduate students in education with hands-on field experience as they design and teach STEAM lessons to elementary through middle school campers,” Kim Lewinski, Ph.D., director of graduate education at La Salle, said. “As their first field assignment, they build essential skills in problem-solving, creativity, collaboration, and classroom management across a variety of content areas.”  

The 2025 camp was space themed, with campers learning and playing in classrooms planned and decorated by the student teachers that looked like spaceships, distant planets, and far away galaxies.   

Colleen Corte, M.A. ‘26, and her fellow co-teachers had spent the last several months creating a cohesive science unit for the campers, which they taught in the mornings.   

Corte, who is getting her Pre-K thru 4 certification, is one of the students teaching first-grade campers. The practical teaching experience that she’s getting as part of STEAM camp is incredibly useful and incredibly rewarding.  

“There is huge growth in a short amount of time, it’s extremely helpful,” she said. “This practicum experience has been extremely valuable. It has been a lot of hard work and sleepless nights but seeing the students faces each morning makes every day worth it.”   

For Corte, one of the biggest takeaways she’s gained from camp is what she’s learned about teaching as a team.   

“The co-teaching model can be rare in education today, but there are always going to be people working with you in some capacity in your classroom or collaboratively about a student,” she said. “The ability to work with them, teach with them, disagree with them, and be successful with them is an invaluable experience. It is a reminder that no matter our relationships with the adults around us, we are there for the students.”   

Ella Uhl, M.A. ‘27, agrees that one of the biggest benefits for the Explorers teaching at camp is the chance to work together, share ideas, and have that support. She also enjoyed getting to know the children and learning to teach in ways that resonate with them.   

“One big takeaway from this experience is how much I learned about myself as a teacher and about the teacher that I want to be for my students in the future,” Uhl, who is teaching first and second grade campers, said.    

Uhl is getting a Pre K thru 4 certification through the Para Pathway Program, a program offered through the School District of Philadelphia which provides paraprofessionals with the opportunity to get teaching certifications. After she has completed the certification, Uhl is planning to get a master’s degree in early childhood education.   

In classrooms with older campers, student teachers have the opportunity to lead more focused, subject-based classes.   

Kathryn Vasey, M.A. ‘27, ‘24, has been co-teaching a class of sixth and seventh graders in the “Mission to Mars” classroom, where they have been discussing the historic and scientific significance of space exploration. Her course culminates in the campers launching baking soda and vinegar rockets.   

“I have really enjoyed doing science experiments with the students,” Vasey said. “They are all very creative, and it’s been great to see science through their eyes.”  

Co-teaching at STEAM camp also allowed her time to experiment with new ways of teaching, as well as to see the benefit of the experiential learning that she incorporated into her camp classroom.   

“It’s great to have a place where I can try out new teaching techniques each day. I am a science teacher during the school year, and I often don’t have the luxury of time to try new things and challenge my abilities,” she said. “I am planning on having more experiential learning embedded in my lesson plans going forward. Our students at the summer camp have really shown me the value of hands-on learning.”  

John Macoretta, ‘86, a social studies teacher working towards a middle level education certificate, is Vasey’s co-teacher, and has helped teach lessons on subjects including the history of flight, universal origin stories, Voyager, flags, problem solving, and what it takes to be an astronaut.    

Like Vasey, the time spent with the campers and learning with them has been a high point of the camp for Macoretta.   

“My favorite part is always the campers; they always have something surprising and interesting to say. It’s great to see them learn new things,” he said. “Teaching the practicum will help me be a better classroom teacher, I’ve learned some new classroom strategies and tried some new techniques.”   

The feedback he was given from his supervisors and fellow education students throughout camp was also highly beneficial.   

STEAM Camp also has a personal bonus for Macoretta.  

“It’s fun to be a teacher in the same classroom where I was a student 40 years ago and on the same campus where my dad was a teacher,” Macoretta, whose father, Ormond Macoretta, was a professor in La Salle’s philosophy department, said.   

“La Salle’s Summer STEAM Camp has been going strong for over 30 years! We love seeing repeat campers each year and welcoming tons of new faces too. Our grad students totally own the curriculum, planning hands-on projects that spark invention, innovation, entrepreneurship, and cross-disciplinary creativity all wrapped in fun, problem-based themes,” Lewinski said. “With University faculty and co-teachers guiding them, these students get great modeling, feedback, and a solid foundation in co-teaching. The result is a collaborative space where campers and grad educators alike learn, explore, and grow together.”    

After a successful 2025 camp, the La Salle education students and faculty are already looking ahead to next years “FIFA Fever” Summer STEAM Enrichment Camp. 

Naomi Thomas 

The post Summer camp lifts-off at La Salle appeared first on La Salle University.