Malcom Jenkins interacting with youth at a Young Dragons camp in 2016.
The Malcolm Jenkins Foundation expanded its partnership with Drexel’s Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center and Lindy Center for Civic Engagement to offer a summer camp for local students to learn, experiment and experience the interplay between science, technology, engineering, arts, athletics and mathematics (STEAM).
Initially piloted with the ExCITe Center in 2016, Summer STEAM offers middle school students living near Drexel’s campus the opportunity to participate in arts-science learning activities. Starting in 2017, the Young Dragons program merged the Summer STEAM curriculum with the established literacy and enrichment programs of the Lindy Center for Civic Engagement for a free six-week camp. The day camp — open to students entering fifth through eighth grades — was held at Drexel again this past summer.
As part of the camp, students in Young Dragons explored music technology (acoustics and sound synthesis), visual arts (geometry and drawing/painting), computer game design and coding, dance (biology and movement) and athletics (sports science and technology). New modules illustrated the basics of engineering behind the design of sneakers and building music-playing robots.
The Young Dragons program has been designed specifically to meet the needs of children living in close proximity to Drexel. This twosquare-mile is a federally designated “Promise Zone” due to challenges it faces associated with persistent poverty.
“The Malcolm Jenkins Foundation is thrilled to be part of this unique collaboration that is having a tremendous impact on Philadelphia youth,” says Malcolm Jenkins, Eagles safety and the founder and chairman of The Malcolm Jenkins Foundation.