WILD Basecamp · A sparkWILD Institute program

We don't take the phone away. We change what it's for.

Every conversation about kids and technology is about subtraction. Less screen time. Fewer apps. Later phones. Parents are handed a list of things to remove and left staring at the hole it leaves. WILD Basecamp is the other half of the answer: something worth building.

How it works

A few families. A season. Something real.

A few families form a basecamp. Four times a year, an expedition begins: a challenge lands, and over six weeks the kids build something real. A short film. A game. A trail guide. A small business. A project for someone who needs it. At the end of the season, basecamps everywhere show their work.

Kids ages 11 to 14 do the building. Older teens help lead. Parents run the basecamp together, with a guide in hand and each other to lean on. Some of the work happens outside, on trails and rivers and back porches. Some of it happens with the most powerful tools ever put in a kid's hands, used the way makers use them.

The challengeAn expedition brief arrives at every basecamp. Each crew chooses what it will make and who it's for.
Six weeks of buildingBuild afternoons, days outside, and a weekly reflection around the table. The work is real, so the stakes are real.
The showcaseEvery basecamp shows what it made. Kids see their work land with a real audience, and see what crews around the world built from the same challenge.

That last part matters. Your kid is going to grow up alongside AI either way. The question is whether they grow up directing it or being directed by it. In a basecamp, they learn to build with it, out loud, with you in the room.

Where this comes from

Expedition one, family one.

I'm an Eagle Scout. I know what a good program gave me: a crew, a challenge, adults who trusted me with real responsibility, and a patch that meant something because of what it took to earn it. My son is thirteen. The program he needs doesn't exist yet, so this summer he and I are building it together in Crested Butte, Colorado. Expedition one, family one.

That's where it stands. The first basecamp is running now. This fall we open the trail to a few more families.

Chris W. Greene, co-founder, sparkWILD Institute

Walk with us First basecamp running now · Fall expedition forming

Follow the build.

If you want to follow along, or you think your family might be one of the first basecamps, leave your email. We'll write when there's something real to show you, which will be soon.

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