15 STEM Summer Programs in California for Middle School Students
- Stephen Turban
- 3 days ago
- 10 min read
If you are a middle school student interested in STEM, structured summer programs can help you explore advanced topics without committing to long-term studies or high costs. These STEM programs offer you exposure to domains such as coding, engineering design, or scientific experimentation, while also introducing you to industry professionals and potential mentors. As a participant, you will participate in workshops, project work, practical exercises, and discussions, building connections with like-minded peers, along with teamwork and communication skills. These programs can also help you test your curiosity in different STEM areas, potentially guiding your future academic choices.
What STEM summer programs are available for middle schoolers in California?
California is home to reputable institutions like Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and more, that offer middle schoolers various opportunities to dive into STEM. These programs typically emphasize hands-on projects, such as building robots or conducting experiments, to help you apply STEM concepts in real-world scenarios. Here, you will also get to learn from leading experts, professors, and professionals within established labs, university classrooms, and STEM workplaces.
To help you with your search, we have curated a list of 15 STEM summer programs in California for middle school students. We have focused on options that are selective, rigorous, and hosted by prestigious organizations. Many of them are fully funded or have generous financial aid, making them accessible opportunities to explore.
Location: Virtual
Cost / Stipend: Free
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Selective; 12 students/year
Program dates: Summer program: July 6 – 24 | Fall weekly sessions: August 26 – December 9
Application deadline: March 25
Eligibility: Students in grades 6 and 7 | U.S. residents attending school in the U.S. | From low-income households
SMSSP is a selective, free enrichment program designed to prepare middle school students for rigorous high school pathways. You will attend a three-week course in the summer, followed by weekly after-school meetings in the fall, refining your academic writing, math skills, and high school planning alongside a small cohort of peers from across the U.S. Stanford Online High School instructors offer guidance, helping you build skills to prepare for future education. The program also serves as a resource if you want to apply to Stanford Online High School or other academically demanding high schools.
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies | Financial aid available
Acceptance rate/Cohort size: Highly selective
Application deadline: Varies based on cohort
Program dates: Eight weeks | Timing varies by cohort
Eligibility: Students in grades 6 to 8
Lumiere’s Junior Explorers Program is a selective online research experience for middle school students, designed to build advanced academic writing and research skills. You begin by selecting a subject area, such as STEM, humanities, or social sciences, and are matched with a PhD-level mentor from a top university. Over the course of the program, you receive a structured introduction to your chosen field, then design and carry out an independent research project focused on a real-world question. To strengthen your writing and analytical abilities, you conclude the program by producing a formal research paper that presents your findings.
Location: Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Cost / Stipend: Free
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: 50–60 students/year
Program dates: May 17 (tentative)
Application deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: Current middle and high school students in the Bay Area | Students from underserved schools encouraged
Stanford seeME is an outreach program designed to introduce middle and high schoolers to engineering through hands-on learning. Hosted by Stanford’s Mechanical Engineering Department and led by current Stanford students and graduate mentors, the program focuses on building a foundational understanding of the field through practical activities. You will learn how engineering concepts are applied across different fields, focusing on areas like wind energy, driverless cars, disease modeling, industrial engineering, fire science, and data science. By connecting you with experienced mentors and applied STEM projects, Stanford seeME supports your early exploration of academic and professional pathways in engineering.
Location: Virtual
Application deadline: Rolling deadlines. You can apply to the program here.
Program dates: 25 hours over 10 weeks (on weekends) during the spring cohort and 25 hours over 2 weeks (on weekdays) during the summer cohort.
Eligibility: Students in grades 6-8
The AI Trailblazers program by Veritas AI is a virtual program that teaches middle school students the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Over 25 hours, you will learn the basics of Python as well as topics like data analysis, regression, image classification, neural networks, and AI ethics. Students learn through lectures and group sessions with a 5:1 student-to-mentor ratio. Previous student projects have included building a machine-learning model to classify music genres and creating a machine-learning algorithm to provide a custom list of educational resources based on selected specifications.
Location: USC Main Campus, Los Angeles, CA
Cost / Stipend: Free
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Selective; 32 students/year
Program dates: July 13 – 24
Application deadline: May 4
Eligibility: Rising 6th–8th graders | B average in math and science
The Northrop Grumman Summer Engineering Camp at USC is a free two-week program for middle school students interested in engineering and computer science. At camp, you will explore civil, mechanical, aerospace, and electrical engineering through activities such as coding, building circuits, designing bridges, launching rockets, and working with robots. You will also study computer science by creating simple applications and exploring basic programming concepts. The program provides industry exposure through interaction with Northrop Grumman staff and collaboration with USC instructors. Through group projects and guided activities, you will get to practice problem-solving and teamwork while learning how engineering is applied in real-world contexts within a university setting.
Location: California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA
Cost / Stipend: Half day: $240 | Full day: $480; scholarships available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Open enrollment
Program dates: June 15 – August 7 (no camp week of July 4)
Application deadline: Not specified; general enrollment opens on February 23
Eligibility: Students in pre-K through 8th grade
California Science Center’s Hands-On Science Camp is a summer program for Pre K through 8th-grade students who want to explore STEM through practice-focused learning experiences. You can choose from more than 25 classes across subjects such as chemistry, earth science, and space science, and choose between weeklong full- or half- day camps. Under the guidance of trained educators and science professionals, you will engage in inquiry-based activities that develop critical thinking through mixing, launching, digging, observing, and experimenting. You will learn alongside peers, building collaboration, teamwork, and problem-solving skills while exploring core STEM concepts in a structured summer learning environment.
Location: UC Irvine campus, Irvine, CA
Cost / Stipend: $967 per session; need-based scholarships available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Not specified
Program dates: Session I: June 23 – 27 | Session II: July 7 – 11 | Session III: July 14 – 18 | Session IV: July 21 – 25
Application deadline: TBA
Eligibility: Students ages 8 – 17
The UCI Summer STEM Summit is a commuter summer program for elementary, middle, and high schoolers who want to explore modern chemistry topics in a university laboratory setting at the University of California, Irvine. During the program, you will attend interactive sessions held in UCI chemistry labs to study how chemistry connects to real-world issues such as climate change, forensic science, food chemistry, and cosmetic science. Sessions are organized by age group, each focusing on a different theme. Under the guidance of university faculty and industry professionals, you will engage in hands-on experiments and applied activities, such as creating ice cream with liquid nitrogen, to explore core chemical principles. Through structured laboratory learning, the program is designed to offer you early exploration of STEM fields in an academic environment.
Location: Online and in-person camps (sites vary by year)
Cost / Stipend: Free
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Not specified
Program dates: Multiple two-week camps in the summer; dates TBA
Application deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: Women and gender expansive teens | Ages 13 – 18
Kode With Klossy’s Summer Camps are designed for middle and high school students interested in learning coding. As a participant, you will spend two weeks exploring one of four tracks: data science, machine learning, mobile app development, or website development. The curriculum covers track-specific core concepts and introduces programming languages such as Python, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and Swift. You will apply what you learn to projects focused on chatbot programming, website creation, app development, or data-driven tasks. At the end of the camp, you will have a finished project that demonstrates your progress and acquired coding skills.
Location: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA
Cost / Stipend: $3,995 – $4,295; financial aid available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Not specified
Program dates: Session 1: June 21 – July 3 | Session 2: July 5 – 17
Application deadline: March 29
Eligibility: Students ages 11 – 14
Camp Conway is a two-week residential mathematics program for middle school students who enjoy exploring challenging ideas and thinking beyond the classroom. Here, you will live in university campus housing and spend about six hours each weekday studying mathematics through topic classes, math explorations, and collaborative problem sessions. You will engage with topics such as graph theory, combinatorics, number theory, cryptography, and geometry by asking questions, forming conjectures, and presenting your discoveries. Faculty members will guide your learning, while counselors will support daily campus life and community building. Alongside academic work, you will take part in recreation and group activities that encourage collaboration and independence in a focused residential environment centered on deep mathematical thinking.
Location: The Lawrence Hall of Science @ UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Cost / Stipend: Tuition: $1,550 | Optional residential tuition: $1,350; financial aid available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Not specified
Program dates: June 22 – 26 | July 6 – 10
Application deadline: Typically, Sunday of the week before the program or residential package begins
Eligibility: Students entering grades 7 – 9
Part of UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Teen Research Programs, the Animal Behavior and Investigations track offers middle schoolers an opportunity to study why animals behave as they do through a hands-on research experience that combines biology and psychology. During the program, you will learn how scientists observe, record, and analyze animal behavior in natural settings and experimental environments. You will take part in wildlife observations, explore birds of prey, tour research laboratories, and explore The Lawrence Hall of Science. You will design and carry out your own animal behavior investigation, collect data, and present your findings to peers and instructors. Throughout the program, you will work with STEM instructors, meet students from other STEM tracks, and connect with college students and science professionals over academic and career pathways.
Location: UC Berkeley Campus, Berkeley, CA
Cost / Stipend: $1,550 tuition + $1,350 optional residential add-on; financial aid available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Not specified
Program dates: June 22 – 26 | July 6 – 10 | July 20 – 24 | July 27 – 31
Application deadline: Typically, Sunday of the week before the program or residential package begins
Eligibility: Students entering grades 7 – 9
This track allows middle schoolers to explore how doctors, scientists, and engineers study, diagnose, and treat disease by examining human body systems. You will investigate how systems such as the brain, heart, lungs, and blood vessels function and what happens when they break down through experiments and practical exposure to real diagnostic techniques. You will also engage in activities like dissecting a sheep heart, exploring cells and blood vessels in the Planetarium, extracting DNA, building organ models, and solving medical mysteries using mock patient cases. The schedule also includes interactions with practicing doctors, lab tours, and a final project showcase that will be open to families.
Location: Wangenheim Middle School, San Diego, CA
Cost / Stipend: Not specified; scholarships available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Not specified
Program dates: July 6 – 24
Application deadline: TBA
Eligibility: Middle school students
Sally Ride Science Academy is a hands-on learning experience at UC San Diego, where you can explore science, technology, engineering, arts, and math through interactive workshops. In the program, you will explore fields like engineering, robotics, entrepreneurship, marine biology, geology, and creative areas like art, VR, and screenwriting. Guided by experienced STEAM instructors, you will learn technical skills alongside creative problem solving as you build, code, design, and experiment in real academic settings. Workshops also feature real-life stories from women who are researchers and innovators, helping you see how classroom concepts connect to future careers.
Location: UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Cost / Stipend: $790 – $1,320 per course; need-based financial aid available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: 20 – 24 students per class
Program dates: June 22 – July 31
Application deadline: Early: February 25 | Standard: March 23 | Extended: May 29
Eligibility: Students in grades 7 – 11 with a strong academic record | Requires teacher recommendation and possible test scores
The UC Berkeley Academic Talent Development Program Secondary Division offers students the opportunity to study advanced subjects at the university level while building strong academic skills for high school and beyond. Here, you will choose from 40+ courses, including STEM options such as computer science, advanced math, chemistry, and environmental science, and complete coursework equivalent to a semester or even a full year of school in six weeks. You will attend lectures, discussions, and hands-on labs, and spend time outside class on structured self-study and projects. Guided by UC Berkeley instructors, you will apply theory through problem solving, research, and practical activities while learning to manage time and work independently.
Location: California State University, Long Beach campus, Long Beach, CA
Cost / Stipend: $525; $25 sibling discount available
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: 290 students/year
Program dates: July 13 – 25
Application deadline: Not specified; registration opens on March 6
Eligibility: Students entering grades 2 – 9
The Young Scientists Camp is a two-week program for elementary and middle school students interested in science-focused activities and in learning to think like scientists. During the program, you will conduct scientific investigations, work in laboratories, and interact with scientists. You will focus on a broad topic in STEM assigned based on your grade level, for instance, forensic science or the intersection of science and art. At camp, you will also participate in field trips to engage in scientific exploration.
Location: Sites in Southern California (Los Angeles)
Cost / Stipend: Free, including lodging, transportation, food, and field trips
Acceptance rate / Cohort size: Highly selective; 40 students
Program dates: Three weeks over the summer (typically June or July)
Application deadline: March 15
Eligibility: 7th graders | Strong math skills and STEM interest
The BEAM Pathway Program Summer Away is a three-week residential STEM summer program for seventh-grade students interested in advanced mathematics and problem-solving. You will live on a college campus and study proof-based math and related STEM topics for about seven hours each weekday through classes, group work, and evening problem sessions. You can choose from areas such as number theory, logic, combinatorics, graph theory, and computer programming to dive into topics under the guidance of university professors and experienced teachers. With support from college student counselors, you will learn how to balance academic learning with recreation, campus activities, and weekend field trips.
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a Ph.D. student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program in which students work one-on-one with a mentor to develop an independent research paper.
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