4^th Hands-on Islamabad STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Camp was successfully held from 19-23 July 2025. The Camp was jointly organized by ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF), Pakistan Science Club (PSC) and Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) at AIOU Main Campus. A digital campaign was launched for the registration of the students from Islamabad, Rawalpindi and surrounding areas. More than 250 students registered but 130 participants confirmed and attended the Camp. 30 volunteers also took part and facilitated the students.

This year, the students were divided into two groups i.e. aged from 7-10 called “Young Explorers” and 11-16 years called “Future Innovators”. Accordingly, the projects were designed keeping in view the age bracket. The projects such as Bunny Bot, Chemical–powered Rocket, Elastic Coaster and Bug Catcher were assigned to young explorers whereas the future innovators were assigned projects such as hydraulic motion energy, solar lamps, wind energy cars, and fuel-powered cannons.  The parallel training sessions were conducted separately for both the groups in three shifts of two hours each. The projects/assignments covered daily life problems using physics, chemistry, engineering, math and biology. The students brought very innovative ideas to solve those problems. The enthusiasm of the students was impressive and encouraging.

On final day of the Camp (23 July 2025), a closing ceremony was held wherein, the participating students and their parents and relatives were invited to attend. The Ceremony was graced by the President ECOSF Prof. Dr. Seyed Komail Tayebi as Chief Guest.

President ECOSF pointed out the achievements of the event, which remain for students, their parents and the organizers. The camp teaches the students how to recognize the importance of science in their life and how to solve their own problems as well as the problems of their society. He added that students learned communication and experienced the networking. The students learned how to search and how to research of different scientific subjects.

Prof. Tayebi also raised some recommendations for parents and teachers to encourage their children’s interest and success in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education. The recommendations were to foster curiosity and exploration, integrate STEM into everyday life, provision of access to STEM tools and resources, encourage creativity alongside STEM, develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills, promote teamwork and collaboration and provide equal opportunities (especially for girls), etc.

Earlier, on behalf of the Organizers, Dr. Tanveer Afzal of AIOU welcomed all the distinguished participants, parents, young leaders/students for attending the Camp and the ceremony. He also highlighted how the preparation of the camp was made. He added that S&T is the key to development and progress of any country thus, the children need to be trained as future scientists to play their role. Therefore, keeping in view the importance of S&T, AIOU joined hands with ECOSF and PSC to train the children as they have to be the leaders and scientists of Pakistan.

Mr. Abdul Rauf CEO of PSC talked about the Camp and its activities in detail. He also highlighted outcome of the event. He thanked ECOSF and AIOU for organizing and hosting the amazing event in the main campus of AIOU.  Abdul Rauf and his team came from Karachi to conduct this camp. He also said that there are a lot of contributions of PSC towards promotion of scientific activities among the people especially children and students. Mr. Rauf also presented a “Science Fun Show” during the ceremony and performed live scientific magical activities.

Following are some glimpses of the activities of the participants:

At the end, the certificates were distributed among the students, volunteers and the organizers.