SigmaCamp 2025: Junior Instructor Challenge
The Junior Instructor Challenge is an opportunity for Sigma Campers to try being an instructor. Junior Instructor Challenge participants will get to teach their own workshop — just like faculty and counselors do. A workshop is a 60-minute hands-on lesson attended by 5-10 campers, and the topics vary greatly. For examples of workshops from past years, check out the workshops offered in 2024!
The Junior Instructor Challenge is not a competition with others, but a competition with yourself -- you will be asked to submit a proposal for a workshop, which we will review and may ask you to revise. If your proposal is approved, then you will get to teach your workshop at SigmaCamp! If you would like to participate in the Junior Instructor Challenge, please submit a workshop proposal below by July 1st, 2025.
If accepted, your workshop will run in parallel with all other workshops that day, and treated on equal grounds with all other workshops. The workshop philosophy and the purpose is twofold: 1) to teach a new, interesting concept and 2) to inspire and excite campers about a topic they have not thought about in the past. In the past, workshops that include demonstrations and opportunities for campers to make something themselves or solve problems have been more successful than lecture-style ones.
Your proposal for the Junior Instructor Challenge should include:
- Background: Give a brief summary of what you wish to teach. What interests you about this topic? How will you make your workshop interesting to other campers?
- Your qualifications: What makes you qualified to teach this workshop?
- Takeaway: What is the most exciting thing(s) about the subject that you want to pass onto your audience?
- A rough lesson plan: Give a rough outline of what you plan to do in the first 15 minutes, the second 15 minutes, and so on. Include some things that you can skip if you are running out of time, and try not to overplan!
- Workshop title
- Workshop description: a few sentences about your workshop that will go in the sign-up sheet. The description and title are critical: they determine how many people sign up to your workshop.
- Budget & Materials: What materials will your workshop require? Will your workshop need to take place in a particular location (ex: chemistry lab, kitchen, outside)? How much money will you need to purchase materials?
- All workshops will have a base budget of $20. If you believe you $20 may not be sufficient for your workshop, please get in touch with us first and we will let you know whether or not we will be able to fund your workshop.
Please make sure you are running a workshop that has not been run before. Submissions to run the same workshop two years in a row will be rejected.