“Learning by doing” is a concept backed by science — and at Destination Science, we know a thing or two about that! See what hands-on learning is all about and how we help our campers understand and engage with new ideas.

What Is Hands-On Learning?

Hands-on learning goes beyond reading, lectures and instruction. With this learning style, kids experience skills or concepts through activities like experiments, labs and other practical examples. So, instead of reading about the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar, kids make a volcano and watch the bubbles flow!

Benefits of Hands-On Learning

Hands-on learning helps kids discover and remember new things. That’s because this learning style:

• Sparks curiosity and creativity: Kids are naturally curious, and when they get the chance to run experiments and answer their own questions, they usually jump at the opportunity. These activities can also allow for extra creativity, like designing a robot or using their imagination to pretend they’re an astronaut.
• Makes lessons fun and memorable: When kids get to build things or get their hands dirty, they have more fun learning. In fact, they might not even realize they’re discovering new concepts, but they’ll remember them well after the activity is over.
• Develops other skills: Sure, kids learn about scientific concepts when they do a lab or experiment. But they also work on other skills, like building critical thinking abilities and discovering cause and effect. During group activities, kids also develop social skills like teamwork and communication while making new friends.
• Makes concepts accessible: Not every child can easily learn by reading about a scientific principle in a book. Hands-on learning gives kids practical examples that bring words on the page to life. 

What We Do at Our Hands-On Summer Camp

At our camp, kids do more than learn science concepts. With our hands-on summer education programs, each day campers ages 5-11 do group and solo experiments and apply principles to build age-appropriate projects that get them excited about science while also making friends.

We change up our programs every year, but explore some of our past activities to see how we engage kids in learning:

Summer 2025 introduces 3 New Science Camps:

• Coaster & Carnival Mystery: Kids design, engineer and construct roller coasters with turns, twists and motorized gears. Solve a science mystery with fun physics, including building a lie detector and creating carnival games, challenges and rides!
• Galactic Space Academy: Campers become explorers of the universe as they test parachute drops, build an antigravity device and design a land racer.
• Wild Robot Science Quest: Kids will design and build both a robot and an animal rescue transporter and explore animals’ amazing biomes, ecosystems and diversity. Campers discover rainbow science, create a potato clock and unleash the bionic ReptileBot.

Each summer, we use different camp themes to excite campers about tons of concepts. Kids leave our camp with projects to take home so the learning can continue!

Register for Our Hands-On Summer Education Programs

We’ve got fun down to a science! We offer this fun summer camp education at over 50 locations throughout the country for either one, two, three or four weeks, Monday through Friday. 

Find STEM summer camps near you so your child can experience hands-on learning!