Flourishing in new areas: INGU held free STEM summer camps for 400+ Hoosier middle schoolers
Creston Intermediate & Middle School students at MSD Warren Township GEAR UP STEM Camp at Stonybrook Middle School (Photo/MJ Multimedia LLC)
Indiana Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP or INGU) was a federally funded postsecondary educational access grant designed to deliver statewide programming to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. The results were overwhelmingly successful.
The Indiana GEAR UP program was housed in the Purdue University College of Education and focused on postsecondary and career readiness especially in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Purdue University and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education (ICHE) collaborated on INGU. (Read this news story for a history of the INGU project.)
Although the U.S. Department of Education canceled the Indiana GEAR UP program in the fall of 2025, its legacy continues to live on through the thousands of Indiana students and families it empowered.
From 2016 to 2024, Indiana GEAR UP served more than 13,000 students, 3,000 educators, and 10 school corporations across the state, providing mentoring, academic support, and college and career guidance from seventh grade through the first year after high school.
“As measured by number of students and educators, INGU has had — far and away — the largest impact on the state of Indiana of any College program in recent memory,” said Phillip J. VanFossen, interim dean and Ackerman Distinguished Professor. “As measured by degree of impact on those Indiana students and educators, however, INGU is without peer.”
Even as the federal program came to a close recently, its lasting impact and partnerships remain strong throughout the state. In 2024, Purdue University secured a seven year, $34.9 million renewal, the sixth-largest federal grant in university history, to continue and expand this groundbreaking work. That award made it possible for INGU to host free STEM Camps in the summer of 2025 for more than 400 sixth- and seventh-grade students from 10 partner school districts across Indiana.
As part of this outreach, between June 27-July 18, 2025, INGU staff held 16 three-to-five-day camps for 410 Indiana 6th and 7th graders students enrolled at partner public school districts – for free.
Participants in these non-residential camps followed a project-based STEM curriculum developed by INGU staff that included activities like building water filtration systems out of household items, designing structures for boiling water using sunlight, constructing Lego cars in teams, and working on collaborative problem-solving and real-time design innovation. Some camps also included cooking tutorials and classes. At each camp’s closing ceremony, students presented their work and takeaways to parents and staff.
Students and parents like the program.
“I like participating in GEAR UP because we do fun activities and it’s at a higher level so it’s more of a challenge than sitting in the classroom to work,” said Jasper Williams of Crawford County Middle School in Marengo, IN.
“I’ve learned so much and it’s changed my thoughts on so many different things,” said fellow Crawford County MS student Molly Hall. “It’s helped me figure out how to think outside the box and tone things down in working with new people and also helped build relationships and so much more.”
“Our son’s very bright but not exactly STEM-minded, so it was fun to see him engage and have to talk through these processes with other kids,” said Amanda Goggin, mother of Phineas Goggin, an upcoming 7th grader at River Valley Middle School in Jeffersonville, IN. “We enjoyed hearing how his experiments failed and what he was trying to think through to try to make them better.”
Leading up to the summer, INGU staff worked hard on developing curricula and hiring and training regional staff for the camps.
“Our Curriculum and Instruction Specialist, Josh Faith, led the effort and worked collaboratively with our operations, implementation, and school-based staff, as well as our school partners, to design and deliver a really impactful learning experience for the amazing students who attended,” said Terron Phillips, INGU state director and a clinical assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies in Purdue’s College of Education.
Camp teaching assistants included Purdue undergraduate and graduate students, who worked alongside Indiana GEAR UP alumni (students who once benefited from the program themselves during the 2016-2024 grant). Now in college, these alumni have come full circle, serving as mentors and near peers to the next generation of GEAR UP students. The Purdue and alumni students taught the project-based STEM curriculum and managed various other aspects of the camps, while also bringing authenticity and relatability that embody the program’s success as former participants now inspiring others.
As well as emphasizing STEM learning, the staff incorporated a number of other major initiatives such as college and career readiness, family and community engagement, and financial literacy programming.
School administrators, teachers, and parents appreciate the results.
“GEAR UP is like that helping hand to impact change for students – they are passionate educators who are looking to provide students access and resources to be able to reach their goals post high school and even sustain them as they go into postsecondary [experiences],” said Carl Scott, principal at West Side Leadership Academy in Gary, IN.
“GEAR UP is trying to give everybody an opportunity to have a future in further education,” said Seth Bates, a math teacher at Tecumseh Middle School in Lafayette, IN. “They need to be able to see that college is not something that ‘I should just give up on because of my situation.’ GEAR UP is helping them see that college is something that can get them out of their situation and not just be something for the rich people or the people that are smart.”
“Sanibel is creative, she loves art, she loves to be a part of the theater, so STEM work might not be what she would naturally flow to,” said Shalonda Darling, mother of incoming 8th grader Sanibel Darling, who attends River Valley Middle School in Jeffersonville, IN. “But there’s that other side of her, too – the side that loves robotics, the side that loves to build, the side that loves to figure out how and why things work. And this camp allowed her to flourish in those areas a little differently than she shows in her day to day.”
Virginia Bolshakova, former executive director of Indiana GEAR UP and a research professor of agroecology and science education, has been INGU’s principal investigator since 2019. She noted that this summer’s STEM camps reached new levels of impact.
“This year’s success comes down to Dr. Phillips’ steady leadership and the continued commitment of our school partners,” Bolshakova said. “Together, we saw record participation, with more students and schools engaged than ever before. Just as importantly, these partnerships deepened collaboration between rural and urban schools – showing what’s possible when communities come together to open new doors in STEM for Indiana students.”
“Our success this summer can be attributed to the team we’ve built statewide,” Phillips said. “Our goal was to have at least 5% of the 6th and 7th graders we serve across the state attend camp, and we had 5.65% attend. Delivering 16 separate summer camps in distinctly different regions across the state was a massive undertaking!”
Phillips explained that some of the main goals of the camps were to interest students in STEM and to launch the newest INGU cohort of more than 14,000 Indiana 7th-12-th grade students. He is especially proud of the number of camps held and student participants served, his staff’s intentionality in involving families in the learning process, and the cross-district collaboration which increased the opportunities schools were able to give their students.
“One of our partner districts, the Maconaquah School Corporation [in Bunker Hill, IN], offers an agricultural program, Maconaquah Farms, which allows students to raise cattle and grow vegetables as part of a farm-to-table initiative,” said Phillips. “We were able to work with our partners in both the rural Maconaquah and urban Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) districts. We arranged for Indianapolis students, who are more accustomed to learning in urban settings, to visit Maconaquah Farms for one day and engage with our STEM curriculum using the resources and spaces more naturally available on farms.”
Sophia Nelson, science/biology teacher at H.L. Harshman Middle School in Indianapolis, agreed. “INGU allowed inner city youth the opportunity to be able to go into the country and learn more about agriculture, which was a great experience since in the inner city they deal with other types of sciences and sometimes never get the opportunity to learn about agriculture,” she said.
As well as serving students and their families, INGU impacted educators and school districts.
“GEAR UP just did a great professional development for our teachers to integrate STEM into some of their classrooms,” said John Murphy, STEM coordinator of Indianapolis Public Schools. “We’re trying to build STEM schools and build a STEM culture throughout Indianapolis Public Schools, and I think our partnership with GEAR UP is something that’s heading in that right direction.”
“The team is able to implement strategic support for students and to utilize targeted professional development for teachers — both of which generated significant gains in graduation and college-going rates for the Indiana students involved,” said VanFossen. “It’s a very powerful program and the Purdue College of Education is proud to host and support it.”
State Director Phillips strongly believes that INGU made innovative educational experiences accessible for all Hoosier students – and Principal Scott from Gary’s West Side Leadership Academy agreed.
“[INGU is] not just someone that comes in and dumps money in and goes off – they get into the nitty gritty,” Scott said. “They come and put boots on the ground. They spend days, they spend time, they meet families, they meet students, they sit in with teachers, and they are really here to make sure that we are a success.”
“I do not think that we can make the needed strides and impact the lives that we need to impact without having a source like GEAR UP,” he said. “They are absolutely vital – they really have the passion to make sure that they impact change.”
Source: Terron Phillips
More info:
Indiana GEAR UP: Creating doors and opportunities for students (Feb. 2023)
Purdue one of fourteen Indiana colleges and universities awarded GEAR UP funding (Dec. 2021)