“So be it, see too it” a voice echoed through the classroom.

“So be it, See to it!” they answer, louder every time. By the third repetition, the phrase isn’t just a chant–it becomes a promise. Every afternoon at the Octavia Project Summer Camp ends this way, with children declaring their futures aloud before heading home. The affirmation comes from African American science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, a woman who overcame tests of dignity through writing award winning science fiction novels. Her words became the foundation for the summer camp, where imagination is treated as a life skill rather than a hobby. 

Octavia Estelle Butler manifested her goals into reality by scribing “So be it, See to it!” on the cover of her journal. Now over the summer, the Octavia Project hands out journals so that students can manifest their own inimitable futures. Beginning in 2015, the Octavia Project nurtured a simple but ambitious idea, to use science fiction as encouragement to imagine boldly. Drawing from nearly two decades of building nonprofit educational programs, and teaching all ages, Meghan McNamara co-founded the Octavia Project to focus on making STEM education accessible through creativity and hands-on learning. Meghan shares this goal with her co-director ray ferreira, who has worked in museum education and blended that experience with her own multidisciplinary art practice. As ray heads the Octavia Project Institute for high schoolers, Meghan captains the Octavia Project Summer Camp for middle schoolers. Drawing from observations made throughout my time in the Summer Camp classroom, this article explores how the Octavia Project creates a space for like minded students to explore their passions. 

A Place of Belonging: Classroom Environment 

Arriving on the first day, the class starts to get on the same page by reading the Octavia Project’s mission statement: “To use the creative power of science fiction and community to imagine new futures and greater possibilities for our world. Combining creative writing, art, science, and technology to encourage critical thinking, build confidence, and develop skills in a variety of subjects.”

When reflecting on the mission statement, Meghan asks participants to “show up as their full selves” to a place that yearns for everyone to just be themselves. She asks students to learn from one another’s individuality and to recognize what each person brings into the classroom.

With three educators in the classroom, each brings their own perspective to the mission. Aarushi, a Lead Teacher who has been with the Octavia Project for eight years, reflects on the Octavia Project (OP) as a “place where I feel I can make real change.” Cheyann, a former high school participant returning to the program now as a Teaching Fellow, describes it as “a place where you are constantly learning; a place that continually introduces you to new paths in life.” Autumn, another alumni and Teaching Fellow, describes the atmosphere within the classroom as “a place of belonging.”

Together, the teachers create an environment grounded in respect, with a major effort towards upholding guidelines to make students feel accepted for who they are. The classroom becomes less about instruction and more about curiosity. In such a big world, this program gives everyone who is a part of it a space where they can feel that they have real power over creating change.

Their inclusivity is hypnotizing. Feeling accepted by the people around you truly makes you feel safe and free. This is why we have so much fun during movement breaks. The way we all learn is different, and learning can very easily become exhausting, especially over the summer. Movement breaks are not just a break from learning; they are a way to keep the classroom from becoming an oppressive learning environment. 

From Pages to Playable Words: Workshops & Projects 

Alongside the different daily workshops, there are recurring sections like book club. Over the summer of 2026, students read Anzu and the Realm of Darkness. At first, book club asks the students to sit quietly and read, but as soon as the pages are read aloud, the room begins to change. Students become eager to participate, to bring Anzu and the other characters to life in their own way.

Soon, reading turns into a performance—they are asked to reenact scenes, create twists on what they’ve read, and make the story make sense to them. During one reenactment, a group of students quickly whipped up masks of the characters from Anzu, cleverly writing their scripts on the backs of the masks so they could follow along as they performed. What started as a few pages in a book became a unique performance created by the students.

This book club isn’t simply about encouraging students to read over the summer and keeping  minds active—it gives them somewhere to begin imagining. The story becomes a starting point, and from there, the students are free to interpret it on their own.

Starting in the third week, students transform their own stories into online games using Twine, a digital storytelling software that allows them to use the stories they have been branching to ask themselves, “What if?” After creating characters and developing their worlds, they begin intertwining ideas, asking, “What if the character makes a different choice?” “What happens next?”

Learning the software in real time, students experiment, make mistakes, and when needed, call in the Debugging Squad! Figuring out how to connect each part of their story, their ideas move from notebooks onto the screen, becoming worlds that friends and family can explore. What started as a character sketch or a page of writing becomes something interactive that can be shared. Something built by the students, one choice at a time.

 As a refresh for the mind, movement breaks happen twice a day. The kids test each other on everyone’s names, playing Name Tag, Mafia, Red Light Green Light, and whatever else gets them moving. This is where some of the best friendships begin. We see the silliness escape, hear the laughter echo, and watch personalities begin to attract. The ones who were hesitant to speak begin making jokes with someone they met only days before. For a moment, there are no projects to finish and no expectations to meet, they are simply kids playing with other kids.

Then, somehow, we walk back into the classroom as a whole.

Universes Colliding: The Community 

Each completely different, everyone here brings their own style, quirk, and smile to the Octavia Project every day. You can find imagination from billions of different universes all in one room. The special thing about this summer camp is how quickly these kids can connect. At their age, they make friends easier, becoming comfortable enough to let their personalities show. You stop seeing a room full of students and start seeing a community of young people who are learning how to listen to each other, create together, and make space for one another. This is what makes the community so special. 

The kids adapt lifelong skills that help them build their own communities. The students aren’t asked to fit into one version of what a learner should look like. They are encouraged to bring whatever universe they have inside of them into the room. In return, they get to see how many other universes exist beside their own.

For returning students, that community can also become a place to grow into a leadership role. Rising ninth graders have the opportunity to become Ambassadors, giving them a new sense of responsibility and a cool sticker to put on their name tag, but also a chance to shape the camp experience for younger students. They aren’t simply returning as campers anymore; they become people that others can look up to. It is an opportunity to realize that their presence has an impact on the community around them.

Seeing it Through 

Perhaps that is what Octavia Butler symbolizes most within this program: the possibility of becoming something that has not yet been imagined. Butler wrote herself into worlds that did not yet exist, and Octavia Project students are being encouraged to do the same. They are learning that the future is not something they have to wait for someone else to create. They can imagine it, question it, build it, and just as Butler wrote in her journal, “See to it.”

Today, the Octavia Project serves young women and trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming youth throughout Brooklyn/ NYC with creativity-based STEM education programs. The OP’s programming includes the Summer Institute, a five-week program for youth ages 14–19; and for students entering grades 6–8, the four-week long Summer Camp program and Spring Studio Lab, a week-long program. The organization also continues to support its alumni through additional opportunities during the year. 

The Octavia Project invites students to use speculative fiction not as a way to escape from reality but as a way to better understand it. With a multidisciplinary curriculum, the students may write a story that evolves into a text-based video game or illustrated accordion book or sculpture. Teaching science and art as one subject shows students how each can deepen the other. This is a place where you feel like you can make a friend, a place where you can make projects, memories and experiences, within a community of like minded individuals.