Programs and Activities
The camp's programs introduce campers to the history and ideas of freethought. Campers also learn about science—including information on the stars, the weather, plants, animals, evolution, and the scientific method—as well as critical thinking, philosophy (including ethics), world religions, and mythology. Civics is considered important in programs that include civil liberties such as free speech and the church-state separation.
Most of the camp's activities, however, include what is usual for summer camps: campfires, singing, crafts, games, swimming, canoeing, nature hikes, woods lore, and ropes courses. Other activities have been more unique: drama, rocketry, code breaking, crop circle design and construction, and history outings. Sometimes the camp's unique programs are combined with traditional activities, such as telling mythological tales around the campfire, teaching cooperation through non-competitive games, comparing creationism and evolution as part of a fossil hunt, or collecting specimens on a nature hike for analyzing under a microscope.
The centerpiece of the camp's approach is encouragement of critical thinking and an introduction to logical fallacies. One tradition along these lines involves making the claim that two invisible unicorns inhabit Camp Quest. Campers are told that these beings cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasted, and that they cannot do harm, do not eat, and leave no mark. An ancient book handed down for untold generations offers proof that the unicorns exist, though no one is allowed to see this book. Any camper who can prove that the unicorns do not exist will win a godless one-hundred dollar bill (issued before 1957, the year the U.S. Congress mandated that "In God We Trust" be printed on American fiat currency.) Since first offering this challenge in August 1996, the prize remains unclaimed.
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