Summer Camps
Mezzacello Urban Farm’s Summer Camp Season is Open!
Welcome to Our 2026 Spring and Summer Season
10 Summer Camp Programs full of fun, design challenges, play, and working with livestock, robots, and automation on a real farm powered by solar and wind power right in downtown Columbus, OH!
Reframing Our Planet - Fun with ecologies and animals
Pro-Teens and Proteins - Fun creating homes and feed on a farm
Life Under Pressure - Fun understanding what humans and animals need on a farm and how we create it using STEM tools
Simple Machines and Shelter - Fun tools and skills for creating shelter, feeders, garden tools, and a dome for animals
Why Matter Matters - How the world works from atoms to atmospheres and where humans, our animals and ecology meet
Eco Logic Life - A fun way to explore new and engaging abilities to sustain farm animals and using modern STEM tools
The Bridges of Life - Fun building engineered products to explore ways to help humans and animals find happiness on a farm
Magical Micro Machines - Fun learning how nature builds machines and how humans model those same machines using STEM
Sustainability, Energy, and Ecology (SEE) - Fun working with solar and wind power, water mills and pumps, and automation on a farm
Life Finds a Way - A wrap up of all the fun events and experiments of the summer, taught completely by kids!
Welcome to 2026!
To celebrate our Season of SUSTAIN | Ability we are offering all camp and workshop offerings at 26% OFF! This offer is good until 2/26/2026. Look for the coupon code on checkout and input the 2026 code to register and save on our award-winning and well-reviewed Farming STEM Summer Camps and Workshops. This offer applies to adult programming as well, but only for a limited time.
Use This Link To View Our Entire Camp Catalogue
Reframing Our Planet Summer Camp
Dates and Times:
June 8 - 12, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we explore what the world looks like at present. What has been the framework of the world? What are the ways we can improve ours? Can we learn from the Earth?
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Ages: 8 - 14
*Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Pro-Teens and Proteins Summer Camps
Dates and Times: June 13 - 19, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we explore gradients, solutions, protein folding, biology, and basic chemistry. What do we know about basic biological processes? Does anyone do it better or differently? What do we know about the building blocks of life, our blood, disease, and the important role gradients make in all the sciences?
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Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Life Under Pressure Summer Camps
Dates and Times: June 22 - 26, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we will explore pressure across all four phases of matter, learn to anticipate and track changes, and examine the scales biology uses to determine how life unfolds.
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Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Simple Machines and Shelter Summer Camp
Dates and Times: July 6 - 10, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation on Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we will explore the basic human needs we all share and what technologies and tools we can use to build and improve them. Do we still use them?
[more]
Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Why Matter Matters Summer Camp
Dates and Times:
July 13 - 17, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
In this one-week camp, we will examine how the world has traditionally conceived of its order. What do we know today that would shock or scare other cultures?
[more]
Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Eco Logic Life Summer Camp
Dates and Times: July 20 - 24, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation on Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we will explore how every culture must find a way forward to live in the world and stretch their SUSTAIN Abilities. What do we do well? How can we learn to do better and live in balance with nature and an economy?
[More]
Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
The Bridges of Life Summer Camp
Dates and Times: July 27 - 31, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation on Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we will STRETCH the very definition of BRIDGE almost to the breaking point. Does a bridge have to be a bridge? Can they hold an atom, a chick, a brick? Let's find out!
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Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Magical Micro Machines Summer Camp
Dates and Times:
August 3 - 7, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation on Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we will explore the simple machines that nature creates and the complex machines we can create. From molecules to active motors at the nanoscale and the human scale. Are these molecular machines like our six simple machines? Then we’ll build a few models..
[more]
Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Sustainability, Energy, Ecology Summer Camp
Dates and Times:
August 10-14, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation on Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we will explore the relationships regarding how past cultures managed energy, how they grew food, what foods they grew, and what foods we traded and inherited.
[more]
Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
Life Finds a Way Summer Camp
Dates and Times:
August 17 - 21, 2026
9:00 - 4:00 at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Live Presentation on Friday @3:00
In this one-week camp, we will explore all nine of the Sustain Ability camps and products. It will be a review of the many ways that Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math come together on an urban farm with animals, gardens, water, and renewable energy.
[more]
Ages: 8 - 14
Rubber Boots & Long Pants Required
Mezzacello has an assortment of boots on loan if needed.
CHECK OUT OUR HANDS-ON STEM WORKSHOP OPTIONS!
Other Fun, Hands-On STEM Experiences at Mezzacello Urban Farm
Public Speaking and Dynamic Presentations Programming
Every summer camp and workshop at Mezzacello Urban Farm requires a presentation of learning, which is built into the curriculum. With our new Narnia Presentation Stage and Hornbeam Allee Presentation Gallery, we’d like to offer workshops for young people to develop and practice public speaking skills.
If you have a kid who lacks confidence in teamwork, creativity, public speaking or presenting, this is a great workshop option.
Topics are chosen by students and the workshop uses the Design Cycle to help them design, build, test, modify, and share a presentation.
All Presentations will be live before an audience and will be filmed and shared via private link on YouTube.
$90 Ages 9-15 - Tuesday Evenings 4:00 - 6:00 Recurring TBD
Leadership Academy
Every summer camp at Mezzacello Urban Farm is partially led and co-taught with a middle School-aged Mentern.
A MenTern is part Near-Peer or Peer-To-Peer Mentor to other kids and an Intern to Jim at Mezzacello Urban Farm.
These young people have been taught the basics of leadership, presentations, public speaking, confidence-boosting, character-building, conflict resolution, and community building in the online zoom curriculum here at Mezzacello Urban Farm via Mezzacello.org.
If you have a young leader who could use some pointers and experience with the talent and skill of leadership, consider signing them up for this 4-week, two-hours per session academy.
All lessons and presentations will be filmed and shared via private link on YouTube.
$90 Ages 9-15 Select Tuesdays
Tuesday Evenings 4:00 - 6:00 Recurring