Do you ever wish you were the forensic scientist on the crime scene? Do you enjoy hands-on scientific and mathematical research? If so, then the Alma College Research Network (ACORN)  program is for you.

Incoming Alma College first-year science and mathematics students have the extraordinary opportunity to engage in research before they even step foot on campus! Prior to their freshman year, selected students are invited to begin their academic journey through the ACORN summer research opportunity alongside Alma faculty and other students.

Dates: June 23 – 27, 2025

Cost: There is no cost for this camp.

Students who will be enrolling in grades 2–6 for the 2025-2026 school year will have a chance to explore topics in math, science, and engineering in a week-long day camp setting. The program includes a variety of hands-on, student-centered experiences where they have the opportunity to learn more about each topic. Students will have two different classes each morning. The afternoons are filled with challenges and activities. Students will move about in small groups led by a counselor. Lunch and snacks are provided each day. There is a limit of 55 students.

Summer 2025 Dates and Registration Coming Soon

During five days on the Alma College campus, students develop solutions to real-world international issues through a simulation of the United Nations Security Council. Your team might work on critical issues like disease outbreaks, international terrorism, climate change, or other global concerns. Work with an exceptional group of incoming and current students – including our nationally recognized Model United Nations team – alumni mentors and expert faculty. Students who attend Global Challenge and enroll at Alma College in fall 2025 receive a $200 tuition credit in October 2025.

Dates: June 8 – 12, 2025

Cost: $375 for high school students and $200 for incoming Alma students.

Each morning students entering grades 7-11 for the 2025-2026 school year will work in small groups on a week-long project in one of the STEM disciplines. Each group will work alongside Alma College faculty and/or students as they complete this work. The students will have a chance to present their work at the close of the week. In the afternoons students will work on engineering challenges, and social enrichment activities and learn more about the possibilities in life after high school. Snacks and lunch will be provided. There is a limit of 40 students.

Registration Fee: $25 per student, with a discount for families with more than one child attending.

Summer 2025 Dates and Registration Coming Soon

In our increasingly polarized and disconnected society, it is crucial that we learn how to speak across political and personal divides. Without this, we lose the ability to work together to tackle today and tomorrow’s issues or even to feel like we are part of a national community.

Thankfully we can learn to do better, and in doing so improve our nation and our world. Spend a few days at Alma College with other high school students and learn how!

At the Doing Democracy Summer Seminar you will learn to:

• Use proven strategies to talk and listen across difference
• Constructively handle political and personal conflicts
• Examine current issues from multiple perspectives, and find solutions
• Work productively with people you disagree with

During the seminar you will not only learn about democracy, but you will also practice democracy.

Summer 2025 Dates and Registration Coming Soon

Cost: $150 per student – Includes housing and food at Alma College.

Registration: $70.00

In this six-day experience, you will work with professionals in a state-of-the-art media lab and studio to study, write, and produce a live social media broadcast related to serious and life-impacting issues regarding our water. You pick the story, you research it and write the script under the mentorship of media experts! The culmination of the experience will be a live podcast on Alma College’s YouTube channel and available for viewers across the world.

Monday, June 23, 2025 – Saturday, June 28, 2025

Cost: This experience has a fee of $100 and will be supplemented through the Great Lakes Watershed Institute. Scholarships and in-need applications are available.

For more information please contact Murray Borrello, Director of the Great Lakes Watershed Institute, at borrello@alma.edu or (989) 463-7191.

Learn More

Explore the creative side of music by composing new pieces, performing new works by fellow participants, and making music with computers.
You Will: Compose a new piece that will be performed by faculty and workshop participants, learn basic notation and audio software, study music theory concepts daily, and explore the music of living composers. No previous composition experience required.

Ages: Vocalists and Instrumentalists 9th-12th grade welcome

Host: Dr. Justin Rito – Assistant Professor of Music – ritojb@alma.edu

Summer 2025 Dates and Registration Coming Soon

Cost: Staying on campus – $575, Commuter – $275

This camp is for students who are interested in pursuing a career as a music educator and would like to hone their conducting skills. Students will learn and practice: the basic conducting patterns, starting and stopping, cueing with either hand, how to manage fermatas, the nuances between choral and instrumental conducting, and how to use gesture to compel a musical response. Each camper will conduct (and sing in) the camp choir, as well as conduct pieces written by our composition students; they may even get the chance to conduct a song on the final concert.

Dates: June 25 – 28, 2025

Cost: Residential $350, Commuter $200

Develop your skills as a performer and a leader in concert percussion, as well as perform in a concert with traditional percussion ensembles, steel drum bands, marimba ensembles, and more. We will help you develop musicianship and technical skills on all instruments including marimba, vibraphone, drum set, timpani, steel drums, hand drumming, world percussion, orchestral percussion, and much, much more.

Open to grades 6-12 and incoming students of any skill level. You will be taught by the directors Dave Zerbe and Aaron Krause, and top members of the renowned Alma College Percussion Ensemble, as well as internationally recognized clinicians.

K-12 teachers take technology tools and explore how to apply them in a classroom setting. This experience is completely online and designed for K-12 teachers using various levels of technology in the classroom. Activities include designing websites, researching tools to support math and science units, and creating classroom-ready technology-enhanced artifacts. This CORE experience is being taught by Jessie Store.

This is a workshop centered around the Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) framework and supporting teachers in making curricular and NGSS-related connections to phenomena-based teaching. K-12 teachers will learn about the tools and knowledge to implement the AST core practices in their own classrooms, whatever level they teach.

Young athletes can improve their game, develop new skillsets, and have a great time while doing it.