Summer camp is a supervised program for children or teenagers conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as campers.
The traditional view of a summer camp as a woody place with hiking, canoeing, and campfires is evolving, with greater acceptance of newer summer camps that offer a wide variety of specialized activities. For example, there are camps for the performing arts, music, magic, computers, language learning, mathematics, children with special needs, and weight loss. In 2006, the American Camp Association reported that 75 percent of camps added new programs. This is largely to counter a trend in decreasing enrollment in summer camps, brought about by smaller family sizes, the growth in supplemental educational programs and the popularity of electronic media, all of which have made keeping children inside and occupied much easier than in previous generations. Camps can be for all ages.
There are also religiously affiliated summer camps, such as those run by Evangelical Christian groups and various denominations of Judaism.
The primary purpose of many camps is educational or cultural development. A summer camp environment may allow children to take healthy risks in a safe and nurturing environment.
Read more about Summer Camp: Organization, Educational Camps, Art and Performing Art Camps, Travel Camps, Sports Camps, Weight Loss Camps, Jewish Camps
Famous quotes containing the words summer and/or camp:
“The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats though unseen among us, visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower;”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“There was a deserted log camp here, apparently used the previous winter, with its “hovel” or barn for cattle.... It was a simple and strong fort erected against the cold, and suggested what valiant trencher work had been done there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)