Not only is summer break the best time to play, it might even be the best time to learn!
Summer schedules offer kids more freedom: more time to explore outside, to experiment more adventurously with movement and sound, and to engage with their surrounding ecosystems all day long. In classrooms, students often have to settle for simulated STEM environments, but over the summer, they have the privilege of observing the real thing with fewer restrictions—making impact all the more meaningful.
With hands-on STEM kits, kids reimagine the great outdoors as a testing ground for their curiosity. Whether in an out-of-school program, a summer camp, or with families at home, kids can have the summer they’ve been dreaming about while making discoveries like they never left the science lab.
Why Outdoor STEM Works
It’s not just the adults who think summer programs make a difference in kids’ academic performance, but the kids themselves; one survey even highlighted that a majority of K-6 graders believed that what they learned in their summer program would help them succeed in school.
Incorporating outdoor STEM learning into summer programs strengthens kids’ scientific inquiry through student-led experiments that connect kids to the environments around them. The outdoors offer students both context and opportunity; when kids are able to look around, point to an animal, and classify it based on its traits—or use their knowledge of plants and food production to help a seed grow—they recognize the utility of STEM in the real world and gain confidence in the contributions they’ll make in class.
Easy Outdoor STEM Activities to Try
Fostering kids’ desire to explore and uncover doesn’t require a lot of space or free time—just a little creativity! Inspired parents and educators can set up a simple garden space or observation area using materials such as foldable chairs, buckets, and benches—or even take a trip to the local park and make a research station out of a picnic table and portable STEM kits. When we move learning outside, the world becomes more than a kid’s playground: it becomes their laboratory.
No matter where kids spend their summer, activities should be usable for groups and individuals, age-appropriate, and elicit excitement worth sharing with friends. These hands-on STEM kits do just that, made adaptable to programs of any size so kids can discover limitlessly:
Plant and Grow:
The iSprowt Herb Garden Kit gets kids hands-on—kids can plant, observe, and record how herbs grow over time. Teaching principles of life science, cause-and-effect, responsibility, and hypothesis building, this kit is grounded in biochemistry and branches to play.
Boost With Biology:
Because summer isn’t really summer without spending some time at the arts and crafts table, the Plants STEM Boost Kit is a great option for combining that authentic, summer camp experience with plant sciences. Available in both English and Spanish languages, the kit’s student-directed challenges encourage imagination, storytelling, independent-learning, and artistic analysis, making biology more vibrant than ever.
Planning Ahead for Summer Success
Whether you’re prepping for midterms, heading into spring break, or just tackling an ordinary Tuesday, summer will be here before you know it. And when it hits, the last thing you’ll want is to waste those sunny days chasing down supplies. Skip the shopping carts, store runs, and scavenger hunts—plan ahead and let Pitsco take care of the rest.
Our scalable, hands-on kits aren’t just built for kids, but for the adults too. Lauded by parents and camp directors alike, our resources are designed with your busy schedules in mind; these kits are complete and ready to go with all activity materials and instructions included, making prep-time more efficient so you can savor your summer (and the kiddos’ smiles!).
Summer Learning—with an Emphasis on “Summer”
Outdoor STEM does more than move school from indoors; it makes learning active, playful, and full of colorful context. Make your summer program—or even your own backyard—a place where kids can think critically, inspire their friends, and get their hands dirty (for science, of course).
Don’t wait until June—get summer ready now. Download the Summer Solutions Guide for more ideas and shop the outdoor learning products page that help your learners grow—literally!