Summer camp can be expensive, and out of reach for some. In Dallas ISD, 700 students started Big Thought Camp on Monday, and it's free.
"This program specifically is all enrichment," Dallas ISD Learning Opportunities Coordinator Nina Baxter said. "So it's all partners within the community. Dance, singing, math, science; so you have all these programs that come together to give our kids more than just the math, the science, and making it more fun."
The camp has activities that vary from music lessons with teachers from Empowering Through the Arts to lessons in gardening from the Dallas Arboretum staff.
"What we can really do is sort of light that flame of curiosity and hope that it takes them somewhere," said Martin Burleson of the Dallas Arboretum. "We can kind of just guide them on their way."
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It's all about planting seeds, of knowledge and experience.
"Sometimes even spark an interest in something that they didn't even know they had in them," said Empowering Through the Arts music teacher Jerone Roy. "Music you can hear and you can feel and that's what gets them going, gets them fired up!"
The 3-week long camp is happening on 9 DISD campuses.
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"If this last class is anything like what we've experienced today, I'm telling you, I'll have a nice little group of musicians here," Roy said. "We're planting seeds and we want to give them something that those seeds can grow."
