University of Maryland, College Park

Message from the UMCP Director: Keran Lu

After three successful summer workshops, the University of Maryland InnoWorks Chapter is excited to announce our fourth summer workshop featuring “Explorations” planned for this August. For five straight years, our UMD volunteers have spent literally thousands of hours working to bring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) enrichment at no cost to over a hundred in-need middle-schoolers in our local community. We work to prevent the critical “brain-drain” that happens over summer break and instead turn that period into a constructive and rewarding experience for our campers. It is our hope that maintaining this continuum from school to camp to school will both improve our campers’ performance in school and promote their interest in pursuing potential careers in the STEM fields.

Last year, our “Making Sense of Senses” curriculum featured hands-on exploration of the human body and perception through fun and exciting activities like brain and eye dissections, rocket launches, and visual and sensory illusions. The ultimate goal of each activity was to promote interest in scientific exploration and the development of their critical-thinking, problem-solving, and logical-reasoning skills. This year, we will see a host of new and familiar activities as we discover our world through the “Explorations” curriculum. We will also see the implementation of our Junior Mentors program, amongst others, as we work to expand our young organization.

The success of our chapter could not be possible without the gracious support of our University of Maryland Sponsors and local school and child-care system. In particular, we would like to thank Dean Hamilton and the Office of Undergraduate Affairs, the Student Government Association, and Provost Farvardin for their gracious donation of funds to support our program. We are also hugely in debt to Dr. Doyle and Dr. Kipnis and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for their donations of facilities and supplies to our efforts. In addition, we thank those at Charles Carroll Middle School, Plum Garden Community Center, and others who took the effort to help us work towards our goal of a better and brighter future for our youth.

The United InnoWorks Academy here at the University of Maryland challenges the university and surrounding community to continue with us in the fight to bring the importance of education into the hearts and minds of our youth. As our nation pours billions of dollars into defending our safety and restoring our economy today we must remember that we do it for tomorrow’s generation. It only makes sense to make sure our children inherit the drive and ingenuity that makes America great.

We challenge you, the parent, the teacher, the administrator, the businessman, the concerned citizen to join us and help in whatever way you can by encouraging your child to fill out our application, encouraging your students to attend the camp, donating to our cause, or just coming by and spending some time seeing what InnoWorks is all about. Together, we can make the difference.

Contact Us

UMCP Chapter email: umcp@innoworks.org

2010 Schedule

• University of Maryland College Park InnoWorks
  August 16 - August 20, 2010

2009 Schedule

• University of Maryland College Park InnoWorks
  August 10 – August 14, 2009

2008 Schedule

• University of Maryland College Park InnoWorks
  August 11 – August 18, 2008

2007 Schedule

• University of Maryland College Park InnoWorks
  July 23 – July 28, 2007

2005 Schedule

• University of Maryland College Park InnoWorks
  August 15 – August 19, 2005

2004 Schedule

• Duke/Maryland InnoWorks
  August 16 – August 20, 2004