NIU will host a number of special interest camps for high school students this summer.

“We’ve had as many as 300 or more students in the past,” said Deborah Booth, continuing education coordinator.

The camps will be held at NIU’s Laredo Taft field campus in Oregon, Ill.

This year, Booth coordinated six of the nine camps in the program. Special subjects the camps are based on include law, art, technology, geography, theater, dinosaurs, speech, nature and music.

The camp staff will be made up of NIU students and faculty, high school teachers and guidance counselors, Booth said. Camp directors will be members of NIU faculty.

Three new camps being offered this summer are the Law Camp, Camp Taft and Dino-Camp.

Dino-Camp students will learn about “the current developments taking place with the study of dinosaurs,” said Camp Director Michael Parrish.

Parrish, assistant director of Biological Sciences, said students will “adopt a dinosaur” and learn about the habitats it once had.

NIU Art Professor Mark Nelson will “do dinosaur art” with the students as part of an effort to give the students “a lot of media exposure,” Parrish said. Students will also watch “bad Hollywood movies” about dinosaurs and find mistakes, he said.

Dino-Camp will run from June 24-29.

In Camp Taft, students will study forest, prairie and river environments, go on a fossil hunt, study weather and learn about 19th century pioneer and Native-American life. The camp runs from July 28-Aug. 3, Booth said.

In the Law Camp, students will spend the week of June 16-21 with lawyers, judges and professors discussing legal issues, she said.

The deadline for students to register for June and July camps is April 15 and May 15 respectively. More information can be received by calling either 753-1450 or 753-1458.