New biology & chemistry summer camp to help high schoolers study God’s creation

Liberty University’s Department of Biology & Chemistry is launching its first Summer Science Camp on June 24-28, a day camp designed for high school students and incoming Liberty freshmen to engage with a wide variety of scientific disciplines and be introduced to Liberty’s mission.

“We have a variety of programs in the natural sciences … and we want to show them to the students before college,” Department Chair Dr. Ben Kalu said. “For high school students who are looking to go into this field, getting proper advising and counseling to point them in the right direction is something that is critical. We want to show them we have expert faculty in these many fields, we have outstanding programs, and we can offer students the opportunity to begin their careers. The department has quite a lot of state-of-the-art equipment throughout, as good as you’ll find pretty much around the world, so we want to show them that too.”

From 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day, campers will participate in two sessions in which they can try their hand at EKGs to look at heart electrical activity, forensic science with fingerprinting and crime scene assessment, human cadaver dissection, or organic chemistry and microbiology, among other activities. The sessions will be hands-on, under the supervision of Liberty professors and undergraduate and graduate students.

Kalu said a goal for the camp is to show students who come from families with little to no college history that achieving a college education can be done and that the sciences are a fascinating field to pursue.

“Our dean, Dr. Heidi DiFrancesca, is passionate about giving opportunities to members of the community who would be first-generation college attendees, and we want to bridge that gap for those who just don’t know what college is like,” Kalu said. “We want to start that conversation with them and guide them along so they can see that it’s possible.”

Through exploring the sciences, meeting faculty and current students, and using the innovative equipment available to the department, Kalu said campers will be introduced to the way in which Liberty infuses Christ into the scientific world, a world created by God.

“Our department’s goal is to lead people in exploring the invisible attributes of God that are manifested in the things He has created,” Kalu said. “In the natural sciences, we employ the scientific tools and principles of scientific inquiry that you would find at any institutions, but we do that with a biblical worldview, with the understanding that God is the Creator of life. Our engagement in science is an act of worship as we discover things about what God has created and how intricately He has designed us and the rest of the natural world. This camp will give us an opportunity to speak into the lives and minds of these young people, to tell them that they can study science and worship God; there is no dichotomy between the two.”

Registration is open for the Summer Science Camp. For more information, email biologyandchemistry@liberty.edu or call (434) 582-2209.

The Summer Science Camp is one of many academic camps that have happened or will happen on Liberty’s campus this summer, including a Nurse Camp earlier this month, Cyber Camp through much of June, the ongoing Uncut Series of performing arts camps, two aviation maintenance camps over the next two weeks, and multiple engineering camps in July. Read more about the camps by visiting Liberty.edu/Summer-Camps.