Our Phenomenal Physics Camps are meant to inspire a love of science in all of our campers – regardless of level or ability or experience – and to show that physics is everywhere in our world in visible and invisible ways!
What do parents say about our camps?
- “This was all fantastic, the camp leaders are so supportive and encouraging cheering on the campers when they have good comments and questions. I thought it was a testament to how committed the leaders are developing and supporting confidence in science learning for young minds.”
- “Incredible staff!”
- “My child enjoyed making the rocket propeller and was explaining me newton’s laws of motion on which he was quite good at (I’m astonished). I believe the teachers were really good at explaining them.”
- “The camp seemed basically made for my son. He loves science – all forms; and I’ve never seen him so excited to wake up and go to any activity before.”
- “I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to each and every staff, educator and admin behind this amazing, hands down best camp ever experience. This is the first camp I’ve sent my kids to, that I’d like to send again and again until they age out.”
What do we offer?
∗ Lots of fun, accessible Physics content! ∗
Interested in some of the content we cover? Topics from past camps include: Mass, Force, Gravity, Momentum, Sound and light Waves, Elements, Orbits, Black Holes, viewing the Sun, Simple Machines, Gravitational Waves, Electric Circuits, Arduino coding, Breadboards, C++, Water Density, Buoyancy, Surface Tension, Air Pressure, our Solar System, Planets, Exoplanets, How the seasons work, Eclipses, Particle physics, Crystal lattice structure, Newton’s laws, Conductivity, Magnetism, liquid nitrogen and more.
∗ Demonstrations, presentations, guest speakers, tours, builds and experiments ∗
Actively participating in science is a great way to learn! We build in lots of demonstrations, presentations and labs explaining key concepts and how they work, invite in guest speakers to share their knowledge and research related to camp content, take campers on tours of our robotics lab and other facilities on campus, build models, and get campers to collect data, test and discover via experiments!
∗ Activities to practice skills and new knowledge ∗
Do you like to make models and machines? Do you want to understand how things work? Activities are designed to practice the concepts and information shared in the classroom. Knowing how things are built helps us understand concepts even better, and helps us relate concepts to the wider world around us.
Who is involved?
Guest Speakers
We offer a rich variety of guest speakers from our pool of undergraduates, graduate students, post-doctorates, staff and faculty working in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at UBC. They provide expert information in their fields using simple demonstrations to illustrate concepts and theories to current research trends and findings, as a way to show our campers how science is actively shaping the world.
2026 Guest Speakers
Nane is a Master’s student in Physics at UBC, where she studies biophysics. Her research focuses on using advanced microscopy techniques to explore the structure and dynamics of nucleic acids and their secondary structures.
She previously worked as an instructor with UBC Physics Camps and is excited to return as a guest speaker to share her passion for physics and biology with students. Nane enjoys making science interactive and accessible, and hopes to inspire curiosity about how physics shapes the living world. Outside of academia, she enjoys crocheting, swimming, and hiking.
Hrishabh Srivastava is a second-year MSc student in Astronomy and a member of the Euclid Strong Lensing Science Working Group. After beginning his academic journey in engineering and data science at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, he transitioned into astrophysics to pursue his long-standing interest in astronomy. His research focuses on identifying strong gravitational lenses in Euclid images to better understand the Universe. Outside of research, he enjoys hiking, reading historical philosophy, and communicating science to wider audiences.
Janelle is a core member of our outreach team. She runs the demo lab where all the fun experiments live, and for camps she helps us put together our Friday science shows! These shows showcase interesting equipment, fun factoids and cool demonstrations of physics concepts, including the creation of our famous liquid nitrogen ice-cream!
Abhishek is a UBC postdoc who studies very small things with one of the biggest machines ever made: subatomic particles with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider! He measures interesting particles like the “top quark” (the most massive particle we know of), and looks for new things we’ve never seen before like supersymmetry.
Ryan is a PhD student at UBC who studies particle physics with the ATLAS Experiment, which is a fancy way of saying “smashes protons together to see what comes out”! Measurements of the physics processes involved in these high-energy interactions can inform our understanding of everything from the stability of the universe to why the universe has more matter than antimatter.
Zhengcheng works in the ATLAS lab with friends Abhishek, Ryan and Cole. He enjoys answering complicated questions from our campers, including “how much does a photon weigh?” and “how can particle physicists measure the speed of light?” Our campers thank you for your great explanations, Zhengcheng!
Cole works in the ATLAS lab with friends Abhishek, Ryan and Zhengcheng. So what does a particle physicist need to know? A lot of code, electronics and communication skills to talk to and share information with international colleagues around the globe.
Thanks to the generosity of the EngPhys Team, we get to tour the Robotics lab where we can meet Engphys students creating robotic masterpieces that will be showcased in a summer robot competition! What an inspiration for our young future builders! Thank you, Bernhard, Greg, Dylan and Miti!
The UBC ASTRO club gives our campers exclusive access to their sunscope – a telescope for the sun, which through using filters is
a good way to view our nearest and brightest ball of fire in sharp detail. What a view! Thank you, ASTRO Club!
Andrzej oversees all programming for PHAS Outreach, from camps to the High School Physics Olympics competition, the CAP Exam and the International Physics Olympiad, to our very popular December Faraday Science show! A true captain of all things physics and a very fine sailboat 🙂
2026 Instructors and BC-Certified Teachers
Physics Instructors & B.C.- certified Teachers
Our physics, astronomy and computer science instructors are undergraduate students close to completing their programs, who have an interest in science education, outreach, and making science accessible for all ages! As they all bring unique skills to their positions, the teaching associated with camp activities content will also be unique, year to year.
We also hire B.C.- Certified teachers to help with classroom management, being camper supports and science mentors.
Micah is a fourth year student at UBC who is passionate about teaching math and physics to kids. He is currently the co leader of UBC physics circles, an outreach program for high school students. Last year he was a guest speaker for physics camps and is excited to return as a full time physics camp instructor. Outside of school, he enjoys a variety of sports, music and spending time outside.
2026 Volunteers!
(coming soon!)
We have a great volunteer team to help us as classroom assistants, as staff support on tours, and as important helpers in our weekly science show! Volunteers are high school students interested in science and outreach, who love working with children! We take on two volunteers per camp. Volunteers help us make great camps, and this volunteer opportunity is an excellent addition to a resume! We offer training, mentorship, and professional references for our volunteers, as well as information referrals to different Departments, programs, facilities, clubs, and activities accessible on UBC-Vancouver campus.
For more information on how to apply for a volunteering position, please see our Volunteer Opportunities page.