‘The Universe … beyond the Skies’: Ithra wraps up summer camp

The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) is wrapping up its Summer Camp, under the theme “The Universe ... beyond the Skies,” having brought in some 545 children between the ages of 4 and 12 for an adventure lasting more than 10 weeks.

The camp featured sessions on space exploration, galaxies, and planets via workshops and interactive activities in both Arabic and English. Each activity was designed to ignite passion and to nurture the participants’ personal skills, in addition to develop their abilities and talents during the summer vacation. 

Six educational tracks

Ithra’s Summer Camp activities included six different educational tracks, including “Music beyond the Skies,” “Space Agent,” “Planetary Guide,” “Mission to Mars,” “Space Treasures,” and “Among the Stars.” 

Each track had a goal and mission to provide stimulating environments for productivity, sharing knowledge, curiosity, and nurturing talents from an early age. The campers expanded their knowledge of survival and settlement skills in space, and exploring and building an understanding of different space environments.

‘Music beyond the Sky’

The track “Music beyond the Sky” offered extensive training on musical colors and space sounds and their environments. The track had participants develop melodies to express themselves in a musical performance. This track allows the participants to learn the fundamentals of music through musical clips to refine their skills and to nourish their auditory insights.

The mother of Maya Abdulqader commented on the interaction of her 8-year-old daughter, and how she benefited and showed tangible development in her musical skills after completing the program. 

The camp provided many opportunities for learning, development, and refining their musical skills through a variety of musical clips. Maya’s interest in musical instruments was clear since she was three years old, where she would always look for guitars in musical stores. As she got older and enrolled in school, the music lessons helped her understand how the sounds of musical instruments work, which motivated her to continue learning music and focus on rhythms and melody. 

The father of Jawaher Al-Taiar said that the program showed the desire of his 7-year-old daughter to have a safe musical haven to stimulate her passion and ambition through extensive training in different musical instruments, adding that his daughter’s interest in the world of music was clear when she was listening to classical music at the age of 5.

‘Planetary Guide’ and ‘Space Agent’

The “Planetary Guide” track had many interactive space-related activities, where the campers were trained to sketch galaxies and planets in diverse ways. The campers were introduced to galaxies, the solar system, planets, and stars. 

The participants of “Space Agent” were trained as a spaceship crew who launched to Mars and trained as astronauts. They developed strategic plans for launching and discovering the environment of the Red Planet for signs of life. Through these multiple scientific activities, the “Space Agent” track contributed to refine the camper’s talents and passion about planets and galaxies, and it expanded their awareness of residency and settling in space. 

It is worth mentioning that Ithra sets a high value on children through designing creative and knowledgeable programs, to enrich their passion and build their skills from an early age. In an effort to build an empowered generation capable of enriching the future of the Kingdom, the Summer Camp concluded after its contribution in skill refinement by presenting information and new knowledge in the fields of science and arts through a series of training courses and various interactive activities.