STEM Programs in Seattle, WA

Puzzles, clues, and mysteries abound as campers explore some of the best and hardest caches around Seattle! Going beyond the basics, Advanced Geocaching is for Explorers who want to enhance their caching, code breaking, and cache making skills. Campers will draw from and incorporate inspiration from the week’s caches to develop, design, and build their own clever caches for other Explorers to solve. Explorers will enjoy a full-day field trip, including drop-off and pick-up in Fremont where Geocaching HQ is located. Let’s go caching! (Full-day field trip to Fremont. Pinnacle will help coordinate carpools.) Entering grades: 5th - 8th or have completed Pinnacle’s Geocaching Camp previously

When kids learn the skills needed to garden & cook, food becomes more than just what they find in the fridge. At Garden-to-Table, Explorers will care for plants at different stages, from seed to harvest, while also discovering what a healthy ecosystem entails. They’ll take the day’s produce to make a healthy snack or meal. Younger Explorers will focus on food challenges involving bread, fruits, and pasta, while Older campers will hone their knife skills and explore some of the challenges our society faces with our food system. Pull up a chair to our Pinnacle table!

Suit up for a mission to space during our ever-popular Space & Rockets camp! Explorers will work together on mission scenarios, while practicing teamwork, communication, and critical thinking. They’ll construct team Space Stations, launch rockets, explore the day & night cycle on Earth, create new constellations, and imagine life on other planets. Get ready to blast off into the final frontier!

Sealab 2025 is summer in a camp! With kayaking, fishing, and tide-pooling, this camp is packed with summer fun! Budding marine biologists will learn how sea life anatomy relates to the human body via specimen dissections, test water quality, and discuss human connection with oceans and waterways. Explorers will enjoy a full-day field trip, including drop-off and pick-up at Golden Gardens, one of Seattle’s best beaches. No swimming experience is required but a love for the water is highly recommended. Grab your swimsuit and join us for Sealab 2025! (Full-day field Trip on Thursday, Pinnacle will help arrange carpools)

An adventure awaits at Potions & Dragons! An excellent intro to chemistry, Explorers will squirt, pour, and mix “potions” all the while learning how scientists use the scientific method and lab tools. Drawing inspiration from myths & legends, Explorers will encounter color changing fairies, exothermic dragons, and elusive mermaids. Favorite Explorer activities include lava lamps, fairy dust parties, garden potions, “spell” books, nature wands, color changing potions, and battles with dragons!

When kids learn the skills needed to garden & cook, food becomes more than just what they find in the fridge. At Garden-to-Table, Explorers will care for plants at different stages, from seed to harvest, while also discovering what a healthy ecosystem entails. They’ll take the day’s produce to make a healthy snack or meal. Younger Explorers will focus on food challenges involving bread, fruits, and pasta, while Older campers will hone their knife skills and explore some of the challenges our society faces with our food system. Pull up a chair to our Pinnacle table!

A Call to Action is designed to empower our middle-schoolers to become change makers in their communities. Explorers will meet with activists, scientists, nature enthusiasts, and officials in various fields to learn first-hand about environmental issues, what positive change can look like, and how to get started all the while swimming, playing, and building projects throughout the week to gain a better understanding of the issues discussed. The week will culminate in a student-led presentation and fundraiser to contribute toward a community cause. Together, we can be the change!

Travel through time with us as we explore and recreate some of the Primitive Projectiles of our ancient ancestors. From throwing rocks & spears, to slings & atlatls, tomahawks & archery, campers will discover how people around the world have innovated projectiles to harvest small and large game for clothing, food, tools and more. Campers will need a keen eye, as we search for materials and game trails. In addition, we’ll talk about how far human innovation has come and what it means to ensure having a sustainable resource. After spending lots of time on target practice, we’ll also share stories, play games, and splash around in the water. If it can be thrown, launched, chucked or tossed, we’ll do it this week during Primitive Projectiles camp!

Sealab 2025 is summer in a camp! With kayaking, fishing, and tide-pooling, this camp is packed with summer fun! Budding marine biologists will learn how sea life anatomy relates to the human body via specimen dissections, test water quality, and discuss human connection with oceans and waterways. Explorers will enjoy a full-day field trip, including drop-off and pick-up at Golden Gardens, one of Seattle’s best beaches. No swimming experience is required but a love for the water is highly recommended. Grab your swimsuit and join us for Sealab 2025! (Full-day field Trip on Thursday, Pinnacle will help arrange carpools)

All creatures have similar basic needs: air, shelter, water, and food. With thematic games and activities, Explorers will discover what these needs are by learning the "Rule of 3" as a general guideline. Engaging lessons on knife skills, collecting water, building debris shelters, and making a fire make for a memorable week. Our intensive, hands-on Survival Skills: The Rule of 3 camp will culminate with a much-deserved s’more celebration, a quintessential summertime treat. Explorers of all experience welcome!

From UV rays to lasers, Explorers will discover a broad spectrum of opportunities to play and experiment with light. Together, we will examine how plants and animals use light beyond what we can see, while also learning how we utilize light in surprising ways, such as laser tag and fiber optics. Explorers will even engrave a personal memento using a laser! Light & Lasers will spark our Explorers’ imaginations!

Regardless of experience levels, all back-country hikers and campers risk getting lost or stranded for a short time in the outdoors. The Advance Survival class will teach Explorers how to survive and even thrive as a team, as they navigate disaster scenarios each day. Instructors will lead campers in engaging survival and primitive skills exercises, showing how to utilize surrounding resources. Skills covered may include animal traps, sewing, water purification, advanced shelters, basket weaving, rescue signaling, wilderness first aid, knife safety, fire-craft and more. Living in the PNW, this camp is a must! Entering grades: 5th - 8th or have completed Pinnacle’s Rule of 3 Survival Camp previously

When kids learn the skills needed to garden & cook, food becomes more than just what they find in the fridge. At Garden-to-Table, Explorers will care for plants at different stages, from seed to harvest, while also discovering what a healthy ecosystem entails. They’ll take the day’s produce to make a healthy snack or meal. Younger Explorers will focus on food challenges involving bread, fruits, and pasta, while Older campers will hone their knife skills and explore some of the challenges our society faces with our food system. Pull up a chair to our Pinnacle table!

Explorers will get a peak into the Small Worlds all around us as they uncover unseen micro-ecosystems. We’ll investigate beehives, nurse logs, and ant hills to compare them to our own communities. Through games and more, Explorers will learn what a healthy ecosystem needs before designing their own terrariums and up-cycling materials to create small worlds for toy dinosaurs, aliens, and rollie pollies. Small Worlds is certain to be a Big Hit!

The electric bikes make taking a three hour tour effortlessly. You will ease up the hills of Seattle while smiling. After the tour you will have seen many unique sites, expanded your knowledge of the waterways, the animals of the Sound and the neighborhoods, and you will have had an enjoyable and memorable experience that's truly all about Seattle. The electric bikes allow for close up viewing of the gardens, boat docks and other sites. Your guide is a local. I grew up in Seattle, taught in Seattle schools, I care about the city and the natural settings and continue to build my knowledge of Seattle. The helmets have an intercom system that helps us communicate while riding the bikes. Your safety is a priority, we stick mainly to bike paths and lightly traveled roads. Please check out the reviews on my website. Must be 16 to take the tour. The bikes are only designed for adults. I charge per bike. I do not charge for children riding on the back of the cargo bike.

Discover Pike Place market through the eyes of local who considers it her favorite market to shop! Autumn introduces you to her favorite vendors while shopping for ingredients for your Pacific Northwest cooking class. After the market tour, join Autumn in her modest Capitol Hill apartment for a 2-hour cooking class. Autumn has a wonderful way of sharing and explaining cooking techniques that you can replicate at home. Enjoy this authentic food experience with a Culinary Institute graduate who also has a masters in gastronomy. Immerse yourself in the culture and cuisine of Seattle with this delightful local host!

Olympic National Park is well known for having several different ecosystems to explore: subalpine forest, wildflower meadows, temperate rain-forest, and the rugged Pacific Shore. This twelve hour tour allows you to sample each of these systems with the added advantage of having an experienced guide to answer any questions that may arise. Come explore tide pools along the coastal beaches, roam among old-growth forest, trek atop mountain ridges with breathtaking vistas and stand by glacier-birthed rivers and lakes. The tour begins on a leisurely ferry boat ride over the Puget Sound to the Olympic Peninsula. The exact itinerary will be curated by the tour guide however our first stop will usually find us at Hurricane Ridge where you will hike to an incredible view of the valley below and the snow-capped mountains in the distance. We will move on to Crescent Lake and the seasonally Sol Duc Valley, and a sandy beach along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Please plan on walking six miles.

Pacific Science Center near the Space Needle in Seattle Center is Washington’s leading attraction for fun and engaging experiences for families and guests of all ages. Explore hundreds of interactive exhibits, wander among fluttering tropical butterflies, tinker with reusable products, touch live marine animals, come face-to-face with prehistoric dinosaurs, travel to outer space in the planetarium, rock out to a dazzling daytime laser show, and so much more. For an additional fee, guests can experience Pacific Science Center’s two IMAX® Theaters.

Experience the magic of being carried by the wind, just as Peter Puget was when he mapped these waters back in 1792. From Seattle’s Shilshole Bay Marina we sail west across Puget Sound toward the magnificent Olympic Mountains. Along the way we will watch for orcas, schools of our local porpoises, sea lions, harbor seals, bald eagles, great blue herons, and other wildlife. On the Sunset Cruise, we’ll enjoy the light show as the sun drops behind the well-named Mount Olympus and other peaks in the Olympic Range and illuminates feathery horizon clouds into glorious colors. Captain Grant, who holds a 100-ton Master of Inland Waters License from the U.S. Coast Guard, is dedicated to sharing the joy of being on the water with others. A former reporter for the Seattle Times, former Science and Medical writer for the Associated Press, and author of four books (one of which was named one of the year’s 10 Best nonfiction books by the American Library Association) Grant is a natural story teller.

Puget Sound was created when the area's glaciers began their retreat about 14,000 years ago, leaving behind intricate patterns of islands, inlets, lakes and shorelines. Enjoy the rich ecosystem of Puget Sound on this two hour kayaking tour. This is a great chance to see seals, sea lions, great herons and more. The route of the tour will vary based on recent sightings of local wildlife. Whether you want to drift among the bull kelp or paddle hard along the shore, this tour is for you. Meet at our docks in Shilshole Marina 20 minutes prior to tour departure Family Friendly Beginner paddlers welcome What to bring: Warm clothes, preferably non-cotton Water-appropriate shoes A water-proof, wind-proof layer Water bottle Sunglasses and/or a sun hat Please note that if your booking is for an odd number of people, the odd person might be paired up with a new friend or guide in a tandem kayak.

Why do salmon swim upriver? Do bridge trolls make good security guards? Does that scruffy man drinking a craft beer work on the shipyard, or in tech? Welcome to life in Seattle. For 3.5 epic hours, we pack in the greatest joys of the Northwest on foot! This tour pays visit to 2 breweries (under 21 allowed), 2 restaurants and 1 cafe inside the National Nordic Museum, all within walking distance from natural wonders, engineering marvels and a city's proud history. Food and Drink are included. Watch Salmon swim upriver to their ancestral spawning grounds with your own eyes! Raise the bridges (and the boats!) as they have for over 100 years. Cheers (Skal!) your new friends and eat fish off a stick like the Viking you always knew you were. Ballard is a short distance from downtown, accessible in 25 min by bus, <15 min by car, or 30 min by scooter/bike share. The tour includes a total of 2.75 miles of walking on mostly flat ground, but there is plenty of time in-between for rest.