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Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp has been selected by the ExxonMobil Foundation and The Harris Foundation as one of 10 national Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) camps to receive grants for June 2016.

This summer will be Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s tenth year hosting the free, two-week residential camp for underserved underrepresented students in grades 6-8 who excel in mathematics and science from Southeast Texas School Districts. The camp offers students experience with real-world, hands-on, Best Practice and inquiry project based STEM activities. The ExxonMobil Foundation has provided the program three-quarters of a million dollars over the past decade.

The program was founded by Bernard Harris Jr., a veteran astronaut for more than 20 years and the first African American to walk in space. Harris spent a decade at NASA conducting research in musculoskeletal physiology and disuse osteoporosis. He has performed clinical investigations of space adaptation and developed in-flight medical devices to extend astronaut stays in space. Harris served as a mission specialist on the space shuttle Columbia in 1993 and payload commander on space shuttle Discovery in 1995.

The program owes much of its success to the support of the University and the College of Education and Human Development along with the program’s collaborative partners, Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center in Orange, A&M AgriLife Research Center in China, the Big Thicket National Preserve in Kountze, Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas and Southeast Texas School Districts as well as a host of ExxonMobil Beaumont employees and numerous community volunteers.