Though the Fourth of July has come and gone, there were still rockets flying on Monday evening at Urbanovsky Park on Texas Tech’s campus.

Attendees of Lubbock’s inaugural Exxon Mobil and Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp gathered at the park to launch their rockets into the wild blue yonder. The rocket-building — and launching — project was just one of many activities that campers have completed during the two-week camp that concludes today.

The chance to construct and then launch their rockets was a good experience for the students, camp director Jana Winter said.

“It was an all-day project,” she said. “They started building at 9 a.m. and now they’re launching. They get to see the full turn in one day.”

The camp offered students from underrepresented populations entering the sixth, seventh and eighth grades an opportunity to participate in classroom sessions and hands-on activities, executive director Beccy Hambright said.

The educational aspect of the camp is not the only perk for the young campers, though. Hambright said the opportunity to visit a college campus is also a valuable experience for the students.

“Many of these students have never been on a university campus before,” she said. “This is really a new experience for them — especially getting to stay in a dorm for two weeks.”

Those opportunities were afforded by Exxon Mobil, which works alongside The Harris Foundation to put the camps on. Exxon Mobil supplied an $80,000 grant to help fund the camp, Hambright said.

Since the camp began on July 18, campers have been exposed to various aspects of the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

On July 19, the students were able to attend the 2010 Hunt-Winston School Solar Car Challenge before beginning their first classroom session, Hambright said.

The third day of camp, media day, was equally exciting for the attendees as Bernard Harris, a Tech graduate and the first African American to walk on the moon spoke to the campers.

The 48 students — 24 male and 24 female — that attended the camp had to meet certain criteria in order to qualify. The prospective campers had to complete a 250-word essay, hold at least a “B” average in their science and math classes and have their math and science teachers write them a letter of recommendation.

With the male-to-female ratio being equal, female campers were given an opportunity to explore STEM fields that they may not have had on their own.

“Girls from this area have a real problem with science and math because it’s not perceived as a female genre but it really is,” Hambright said. “These girls have been proved positive that (math and science) are. They really dive into this and love it.”

Rebecca McGaughey, one of the 22 instructors at the camp and a junior Tech engineering student echoed that sentiment.

“We’re getting girls interested at a young age and encouraging them,” Lubbock native McGaughey said. “We’re telling them it’s okay to be smart. It will help them as they go into higher education.”

The camp draws to a close today with a special presentation by Exxon Mobil major program officer Lauren Dohrer at 12:45 p.m. in lecture hall 202 in the Rawls College of Business Administration. Following the presentation, campers will have a reception at Silent Wings Museum, Hambright said.

In light of the success of the camp’s first year, Winter said it should be back again next year.

“It’s been very rewarding,” she said. “I’d work 24-hours-a-day again because it’s been worth it. I look forward to next year.