The Stanlee and Gerald R. Rubin Center for the Visual Arts is offering free student-led workshops and summer camps for middle and high school students. The program will include visual art camps, starting June 24, and STEAM—science, technology, engineering, art and math—workshops every Wednesday beginning June 29.

The Rubin Center has hosted these camps for the past seven years. This year’s theme is “Be the Change: Understanding Social Justice Through the Arts.”

“I think people are excited to connect with an opportunity for their kids that’s unique and helps them connect with the world at large in a different way,” said Melissa Barba, assistant director at the Rubin Center.

The workshops, called STEAM Wonder Wednesdays, will  integrate art with one of the STEM area subjects, while also keeping in mind contemporary issues of social justice.

“I think part of it is part of being a contemporary art space; we’re always looking for ways to connect to the community and activate the spaces that we work and live in,” Barba said.   

All activities are taught by UTEP students from different majors, whose original lessons include explosive art, Chihuahuan desert eco-boxes, all about math and art, cyanotypes and catapult art.

Ruby Franco, junior art education major, is teaching the “All About Math” workshop. She will teach students about the Fibonacci sequence by cutting out shapes. She said that her workshop will make a difficult concept accessible to children.

“I broke it down so kids could learn what the sequence is, who Fibonacci was and create art with the shapes that they cut,” Franco said. “It’s not a subject that is taught in regular schools.”

Pablo Alcala, a junior print making and drawing  major who is teaching the workshop on cyanotypes—a type of photo printing process—said that a main objective of the workshops is to have children realize how the STEAM disciplines are all interrelated and that subjects like science and chemistry can be fun.

“In making a building, you have to use engineering, but you’re also making it a beautiful building,” Alcala said. “By the end of the class they’re all going to be looking at the world differently.”

All workshops are free and open to the public. The summer camps for middle and high school students run from June 20-24, and workshops for ages 4-12 run every Wednesday for five weeks starting June 29. For more information or to RSVP, call 747-6151.

Andria Granado may be reached at [email protected]