POWERED BY
VISION: to create a student-centered, welcoming learning environment that empowers secondary school students to feel more confident in their learning, while inspiring and preparing them to: pursue careers in the health sector, engage critically with the topics that they learn, and foster lifelong learning.
Camp xSEL (Excellence in Science Education for Liberia), is an annual summer science program for secondary school students recruited from across Liberia. In addition to covering content in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, English, and computer skills, Camp xSEL emphasizes inquiry-based learning, data-driven critical reasoning, data interpretation, and other foundational research utilization skills. Special sessions will introduce students to the scientific method, laboratory safety, and hands-on experimentation. Additional content will engage students in critical thinking exercises and help them build communication skills through speech and writing clinics.
OUR MISSION
To provide students entering medical school with the tools to approach science learning in the 21st century and to equip them with the skills and attributes that will help them excel in their path to medicine.
Inquiry-Based Learning
Students will be encouraged to approach the content they are taught critically. Through reading and writing exercises, journal clubs, and a student-centered classroom model, students will engage with the material critically. No dry memorization and regurgitation of information.
Relational and Holistic Concept Understanding
Drawing connections between different concepts and fields lies at the core of Camp xSEL. Students will be called to relate concepts and information from different courses in the Drawing Connections weekly sessions! Science is interdisciplinary and interconnected. And so is learning at Camp xSEL!
Data-Driven Critical Thinking
From understanding fundamental concepts in math and statistics to reading primary literature papers, students will be engaging with data and understand what that data represents and the stories it tells. Lab courses will push students to acquire data themselves and see how data is created, and analyzed on an empirical basis.
Soft-skill Building
Working as a health professional is much more than a science profession. It is a human-centered service. At Camp xSEL we recognize the centrality of soft skills, such as communication, empathy, and cooperation in the health professions. Hence, we place soft skills at the heart of the Camp experience.
The ULCHS CTLI is a national public-private-academic hub for research utilization education, training, and collaboration throughout Liberia’s health sector. CTLI provides a long-term institutional home for sustaining programs developed through BRIDGE-U: Applying Research for a Healthy Liberia (BRIDGE-U Liberia) and other funded projects. CTLI also provides a place for faculty, students, policymakers, clinicians, entrepreneurs, and others to gather for project activities and trainings as well as networking and collaboration.
