Forget fishing. Some young’uns spent their summer camp hours learning about finance.

Instead of the traditional summertime pursuits of canoeing, hiking, and lanyard making, a number of teenage students across the country spent part of their summer participating in workshops, staring at computers, and attending seminars at business camp. Forget the sun dappled lake and lumpy bunk beds. In recent years a number of camps have cropped up designed specifically to nurture fledgling teenage entrepreneurs and give them real-world business experience.

For instance, The Girls Inc. Corporate Camp for Entrepreneurs, which launched in 2002, offers teenage girls from across the country a seven-day immersion camp in marketing, finance, and how to give a business presentation. Another such camp that has been around since 1975 is Washington Business Week for teens sponsored by the nonprofit Private Enterprise Education, based in Olympia, Wash. In 1993, the Business Leadership Program, held at the University of Colorado in Boulder, launched its business camp as way to encourage minority students to take an interest in business education.

Source: BusinessWeek