Students at ProjectCREATE's summer 2013 camp, seen here, construct their own castles using foam insulation and tape. The campers learned about the history of castles, designed castle blueprints and eventually built their castles as part of ProjectCREATE's theme that year of the Italian Renaissance.

Five years ago, a small but enthusiastic group of Lawrence educators came together to launch a camp for academically gifted kids, focusing on kindergarten through sixth grade.

“We were all elementary gifted facilitators,” remembers Kathy Bowen, a retired teacher from Montana who had longed dreamed of such an opportunity for the students she serves as the gifted-education facilitator for the Lawrence school district.

“Every year, our families would say to us, ‘What can our kids do for the summer?'” says Bowen, who also facilitates the gifted program at Hillcrest Elementary School. “There weren’t a lot of camps available for high-ability kids, and we thought, ‘We can do that.’ It was a lot of learning, a lot of growing pains, and a lot of organization and creativity.”

Over the years, Bowen and her ProjectCREATE co-founders have gained a small but loyal following, she says, with parents of gifted students in the district. On April 8, they’ll host their final “Passport to Adventure” one-day camp of the school year.

Slated for 9 a.m. to noon at the Lawrence College and Career Center, 2910 Haskell Avenue, the workshop invites kids to engage in creative and critical thinking through small teams, tackling subjects such as the electromagnetic spectrum and how it’s “changed our world from communication to cooking,” the geometry and artistry of M.C. Escher, and even some high-concept board-game designing.

Camps in past years have focused on everything from solar energy to the Italian Renaissance. This summer’s ProjectCREATE — it’s an acronym for Cultivating Responsible, Enriched, Artistic, Tech-Savvy Enthusiasts — will focus on community, Bowen says, immersing campers in every aspect of infrastructure, arts and culture, social issues and the workings of local government, among other components.

“We’re able to do lots of project-based learning through the schools, but we wanted to go deeper and have a little more time, and nurture those kids all in one group,” Bowen says of the enrichment gap she and other teachers observed during summer breaks. “We also thought it was important for our community, for kids to meet other kids across Lawrence and the surrounding areas who are like them.”

Attendance has waned a bit this year, Bowen says, partly due, she theorizes, to an increase in children’s activities offered locally. It’s also difficult, she says, to promote ProjectCREATE with students and parents because the nonprofit operates separately from the Lawrence school district. Budgeting is tight, she adds, and doesn’t leave much for advertising.

“People hear about us through word of mouth a lot and say, ‘Why don’t we know about this?'” And we’re like, ‘We don’t know,'” Bowen says. “That’s been a challenge for us.”

Still, Bowen says she often hears from families that they plan their summer vacations around the ProjectCREATE camps. There are some kids, she says, who “come back year after year.”

A few of her fellow ProjectCREATE founders have since moved out of the Lawrence district, but most of the group’s teachers — Paul Bloom, Devin Heath, Lori Byers and Anna Heinritz — are still around, facilitating gifted programs at local elementary and middle schools.

“During the summer, we try to give ourselves a salary for some of the work we’ve done,” Bowen says, “but a lot of it has been just because we want to.”

That, she says, and “we all like learning,” right alongside the kids.

For more on ProjectCREATE, including enrollment forms and the camps’ financial aid program, visit projectcreatekids.com.