Recently, during my training with camp staff about friendship skills, I showed them the video of Susan Pinker's TED Talk, "The Secret to Living Longer May Be Your Social Life."

I then asked our staff to share what similarities they found between summer camp and the small village in Sardinia Pinker describes in her TED Talk. 

They came up with these ideas:

Camp makes a difference!

This blog from ACA Director of Research Dr. Laurie Browne discusses the key findings from Phase 2 of the Camper and Staff Impact studies. 

You probably want a number here.  If you’re only going to read these first two sentences, then I’ll pick the age of nine.

In the latest Research 360 blog post, ACA research assistant Rob Warner discusses updates from a recent Research Advisory Committee meeting.

Children between eight and ten years old currently spend nearly eight hours a day on media. Adolescents average nearly eleven hours per day, seven days a week, on screens. The negative impact of this digital lifestyle is evident in kids’ expanding waistlines as well as their growing lack of interest in being outdoors. Now there’s an additional worry about the impact of our kids’ excessive screen use: anxiety.

Hello camp evaluators, and happy fall season. While some of you are as busy as ever, others are taking a deep breath for the first time in months. No matter where you are at, you are probably at or soon approaching a point where you will look back on summer 2018 and wonder, How did we do?

While it’s easy to think of ways to teach our kids to do laundry or solve math problems, finding a way to instill important character traits isn’t as simple.

Looking for someone to bring telescopes to an evening camp program, or to give your campers a presentation about the InSight mission landing on Mars this fall? NASA has communities of volunteers across the United States that can help.

Hello!

I hope everyone had a wonderful summer full of excitement and learning! I am new to the ACA Research 360 Blog and would like to introduce myself and share my story with you.

My name is Rob Warner and I am the new research assistant for ACA. I recently began my doctoral studies at the University of Utah and will be involved with ACA in a variety of roles over the next several years. I look forward to being a part of the research efforts and meeting many of you along the way!