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The camp will focus on teaching students science in a hands-on environment.

Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma launched its first ever high school science camp this summer — and organizers say the community response has been surprising.

AWC math professor Reetika Dhawan hoped to share her love of science with area high school students. When she and an administrator at the college came up with the idea for a science camp, they thought they’d offer 24 spots and see what happened.

“We got more than 100 calls so we’re going to focus again on the same camp next year," said Dhawan.

The camp, open to students ages 14 to 18, filled within three hours. More than 70 are on the waiting list.

The tuition-free, three-hour workshops are from June 27 through July 1. They will focus on topics such as disease transmission, fossil examination, physics and entomology.

Paid for by a grant from the Science Foundation of Arizona, Dhawan said the camp will expose high-schoolers to science in a hands-on environment.

“And they will learn basically stuff from the ninth grade of science to all the way to college. I mean, it’s real stuff going on in real life," Dhawan said.