The Gateway Academy Camp being held at the Ballston Spa High School engages kids in four increasingly important areas. Known as STEM, science, technology, engineering and math are those four subjects Vince Gallagher has more.

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"We received funding through the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and Project Lead the Way to be able to offer this program at little or no cost to our students," said Diane Irwine, K-12 Science Coordinator.

This week-long camp brings students together for a common cause.

"It's promoting communication, group work, it's building those essential skills for the workforce, even though their only middle schoolers, it's going to transport to high school and college," said Darrell Ackroyd, Gateway Instructor.

This project, geared towards the engineering side of things, involved just two things- tape and newspapers. Then it was time to get rolling.

"We have to build a tent-cabin thing that would hold a person during a storm, like your on an island and all you have is newspaper and tape," said Meghan Myers, a STEM summer student.

"For the shelter we're making a teepee sort of. It's small and we need enough resources to build it," said Dalton Towers, another STEM summer student.

There's many benefits to a STEM education these days. According to the US Department of Commerce's Economics Administration, over the past ten years, STEM jobs have increased over three times the rate of non-STEM jobs. Also, STEM related jobs pay on average nearly 26 percent more than non-STEM, and it's good for the economy.

"It's really creating those inventions and those new ideas to create the next thing that people are going to able to build and manufacture and get into that piece of it, so we really need the ideas and new inventions to continue to build our economy," said Irwine.