Ask a six-year-old about the best part of summer camp and you will get an honest answer. Asked why his week at Stem for Kids Mobile Bay in Fairhope was so much fun, one young camper put it plainly: “We got to play Minecraft!” What he did not mention — because he was too busy having fun — is that inside that Minecraft theme sat a full STEM curriculum: science, technology, engineering and math challenges that had him building, testing, failing and redesigning all week long.
That is the formula Ashton Crist has built her franchise around — technology kids already love, wrapped around learning skills that will outlast any video game.
From Classroom to Cottage
Crist came to STEM education the long way, through more than a decade of teaching. A Theodore High School graduate, she earned her elementary education degree at Troy University, taught in Atlanta for a few years, then returned to Alabama to teach two years at Gulf Shores Elementary and five more at Bayside Academy in Daphne. Along the way she added a master’s degree and became STEAM certified through Clemson University — the “A” adding arts to the STEM mix — and realized the direction she wanted her career to take.
In 2021 she bought the Stem for Kids Mobile Bay franchise. The business, part of a franchise founded a decade earlier with branches across the United States and in five countries, is housed in a cottage at 5906 Sweetwater Circle in Fairhope that looks like what it is: a classroom, complete with laptops and a wealth of hands-on learning tools — Legos, blocks, paper tubes, paint, balls and more.
How the Learning Works
The method Crist describes is inquiry-based and project-based, with engineering design at the center. Inside the Minecraft theme, students tackle STEM challenges collaboratively, building structures and solving problems with the same tools engineers use: design, test, fail, redesign. “The children work collaboratively to create and solve problems,” Crist explains. “They learn how to fail, redesign, and figure out what went wrong. These skills are important in all facets of life.”
The franchise’s curriculum is written by industry professionals and tied to real careers — a deliberate answer to the question of what skills will matter when today’s elementary students enter a workforce being reshaped by technology. Curiosity and critical thinking, the reasoning goes, are the transferable skills; Minecraft is the delivery system.
Schools, Camps and Parties
During the school year, Crist and her associate Telea Cobb take the curriculum on the road, booking into area schools for specific hours or full days. Their STEM for Tots program reaches Pre-K classes across Alabama, and the team partners with Covenant Academy of Mobile, a charter school, teaching there five days a week.
When school lets out — Christmas, spring break, and the long summer — camps take over the Fairhope cottage, with themes that have included the Minecraft engineering weeks, aerospace engineering, and “Taste of STEM,” an introduction to the whole field. STEM-based birthday parties round out the calendar, turning the classroom over to celebration without losing the learning.
Why It Matters Here
Coastal Alabama’s economy is diversifying — aerospace on the Eastern Shore, shipbuilding across the Bay, engineering firms up and down the I-10 corridor — and the pipeline for those jobs starts with kids who discover early that math and science are creative acts, not worksheets. Programs like Stem for Kids Mobile Bay occupy exactly that ground: close enough to home that working parents can manage it, engaging enough that children ask to come back.
The grandparents dropping off campers get something out of it too. As one grandmother put it after a week of Minecraft camp: an educational activity for the visiting grandson — plus three hours for grandmother to catch her breath. Everybody learns something.
Stem for Kids Mobile Bay is at 5906 Sweetwater Circle in Fairhope. Camp schedules, school programs and birthday party information are available through the franchise’s local channels.