by Tony Brave, Native American Outreach Coordinator
We are going online! The Native Youth Exploring Higher Education (NY’EHE) summer camp will be held virtually this year, from July 13-24, 2020. This year we are opening the camp to all incoming Native American high school students for fall 2020. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in a variety of live sessions with college students and Tribal professionals and hands-on projects such as scavenger hunts, video game making, photography projects, solar panels building and more! We will have some live sessions between 1-3pm, but for convenience, many of the activities, projects and workshops will be available for the students to do from home at their own pace.
As usual, the camp is totally free, and we are hoping to get up to 100 sign-ups this year. Each participant will get a digital tablet sent to their home address to be able to access the “camp,” along with a kit of materials and other goodies, to complete projects and workshops. We will have an incentive program as well, meaning the more projects that are completed, the better the incentive prizes participants can get. Incentives will be sent once the camp has been completed. We are also adding a live moderated chat component so students can interact with each other, share what they have been working on, and make new friends.
How will this work? Students who sign up will get an invite to create an account in Microsoft Teams (an online learning management system), and be added to the online NY’EHE course where they can access the camp. The camp contents will be organized into daily modules so participants can easily follow along. All they need to do is log-in and check the modules tab to see what is going on that day. Of course, we will also provide an orientation to Microsoft Teams, along with live support for any students who might need any help along the way.
Although there are certain aspects of the original NY’EHE camp that are difficult to replicate virtually, our goal continues to be providing interesting and relevant experiential content for Native youth that will serve them in the future and hopefully get them excited about higher education. It is our hope these efforts will bring joy, laughter, and learning to Native youth who are safe at home during such a stressful world event.
For more information and a link to the application, visit: https://native.wsu.edu/nyehe/
Application deadline to sign up is June 1st. Questions? Contact Tony Brave at: 509-335-6718, anthony.brave@wsu.edu.