An immersive experience: Growing BYU Young Historian Camp offers hands-on learning
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- A student shows an artifact to BYU College of Family, Home and Social Sciences Dean Jeff Nokes at the Hinckley Mounds on Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Provo.
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- BYU Young Historian Camp participants search for artifacts at the Hinckley Mounds on Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Provo.
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- BYU Young Historian Camp participants search for artifacts at the Hinckley Mounds on Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Provo.
High school and middle school students can do just about everything at Brigham Young University summer camps, from fine-tuning their jump shot to preparing for the ACT.
Up until recently, though, missing from the list was a camp catering to a particular type of teenager: history buffs.
The BYU Young Historian Camp was launched last year to give students an immersive history experience. A handful of mostly local kids participated, commuting from home each day to the various activities.
By year two, the camp is on another level.
Roughly 40 kids — double last year’s attendance — are at this week’s camp, coming from as far as Louisiana. Staying at BYU, students are getting a taste of the campus life while diving into their favorite subject.
Throughout the week, students are given access to historic artifacts that are not typically available to the public. Third-year social science teaching student and camp director Abby Toliver said as far as she is aware, there’s not another history camp like it.
“The big reason we pushed for this, especially with the decline in our history majors, is we just wanted students to see that history is not just sitting and reading these books, and we’re trying to really emphasize that it’s so hands-on, and it’s been really cool,” Toliver said. “And because we’re the only one, we have students coming from all over the country just to experience it.”
On Monday, they visited special collections and saw an original Book of Mormon, a cuneiform stone and other items. They were able to touch them while wearing gloves.
On Tuesday, they trekked Provo’s Hinckley Mounds, a 1,000-year-old Fremont village being excavated by BYU archaeologists. They sifted through dirt searching for ancient artifacts, like old tools or fish bones.
“We found several bones. We found an obsidian arrowhead, and the kids get to dig it out, clean it and then tag it and put it away,” Toliver said. “So it’s really just giving them an opportunity to see what an archaeology major does.”
Also on the schedule are roughly 20 lectures from different history professors at BYU, with many professors buying materials to make their lessons engaging for the students. Toliver said one professor will teach the kids how to write with a quill pen and ink, and they will take home their own quill.
What is clear is that camp organizers identified their target audience. At Hinckley Mounds Tuesday morning, students peppered BYU anthropology professor Michael Searcy with questions ranging from how to identify the sex of a human fossil to how much time the Fremont people would spend inside their homes.
One student, Madeleine, of Pleasant Grove, said she watched videos about the Fremont people in preparation for the dig. She said the entire camp was right up her alley.
“So far it has been really, really great,” Madeleine said. “I’m here with one of my very best friends, and we’re both nerds, and so we’re out here having a ton of fun and learning new stuff.”
