Riveropolis: River to the Center of the Earth

Welcome to Riveropolis Maker Camp!  ​​There’s nothing like the sight, sound, and feel of cascading water to stimulate the imagination! In Riveropolis, kids explore art, architecture, and engineering as they construct a fantastic model river world with real rain, waterfalls, lakes, and islands. Along the banks of the river, campers will learn arts and craft techniques as they build houses, towers, castles, forests, gardens, statues, and more. Creating special features that link individual plots such as fences, walls, gates, roads, bridges, sky-rides, and boats introduces concepts of collaboration, civics, and urban design. The resulting 35-foot river landscape becomes the centerpiece for a Grand Tour for parents and friends on the final day of camp! 

Riveropolis Maker Camp get's earthy this year! Partially inspired by Jules Vernes’ Journey to the Center of the Earth, young architects and storytellers will work individually and together to create a fantastic underground river landscape. Each child will invent a "land" along the descending route which may be inhabited by animal communities, exotic gardens, lost tribes of humanity, fairy houses, mythological figures or secret hi-tech installations. Real cascading water will flow down through a series of giant grotto's culminating in a vast underground sea! Along the way Campers will learn about architecture, hydrology design and a bit of biology and geology. The finished 35-foot river landscape will be the centerpiece for a Grand Tour for parents and friends! a

Taught by: Gregory Gavin visual artist, designs public art and educational projects for schools, museums and public places. He’s been commissioned by theYerba Buena Center for the Arts, the de Young Museum and has piloted summer camps for the Bay Area Discovery Museum and MOCA. Dolores Elkin has over 30 years of experience teaching 25 of them at The San Francisco School). She has a CA teaching credential for art, along with a CA credential for teaching grades pre-K-12.