OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma National Guard’s STARBASE Oklahoma City hosted a science, technology, engineering and math summer camp at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, June 10-14, bringing excitement and educational opportunities to the children of Oklahoma National Guard members living in the Oklahoma City area.

"This camp is for all the military families here on Will Rogers Air National Guard Base and the National Guard," said Larry Tettleton, who is one of the instructors at STARBASE OKC. "This camp is about letting them have fun with science, technology, engineering, and math, and just give them a break from the doldrums of summer."

More than 50 children of Oklahoma National Guard members and Will Rogers Air National Guard base employees attended the camp where they took part in science experiments, built and coded robots to complete simple tasks, learned about computer aided design, and met with National Guard members to hear how STEM education helped propel them on successful careers in the military.

STARBASE OKC is part of the Department of Defense-funded STARBASE education program that focuses on inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators by offering challenging “hands-on, minds-on” activities and exposing students to real-world applications of STEM.
The Oklahoma National Guard and Oklahoma Military Department operate four STARBASE locations in Oklahoma at the Tulsa Air National Guard Base, Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Fort Sill and the Oklahoma Air and Spaceport in Burns Flat, Oklahoma.

The summer camp is part of STARBASE’s summer outreach to keep kids engaged in learning. During the school year, the program is aimed at motivating fifth-grade students to explore STEM opportunities, offering a 25-hour curriculum spread over five days or five weeks.

Tettleton, who taught physical education at Sequoyah Middle School in Edmond, Oklahoma for 27 years, joked that he’s learned as much about STEM as his STARBASE students do and said the impact of the camp is self-evident on the faces of students at the end of the camp.

“It's awesome to see a kid at the start of STARBASE who doesn’t like science. I can just see it in his eyes. He's like, 'Oh, great. It's another science class.' You know?,” Tettleton said. “By the time we're done, they're smiling. They don't want to go. They want to know what other experiments they can do or activities. It just makes me feel really good, like I've done my job as a teacher to get them excited about something,"