Grade school may be out in June, but college begins in July-- Kids' College at Penn State Greater Allegheny, that is.

Now in its 14th year, the camp is held for two weeks, July 7-18, at Penn State's McKeesport campus, where youngsters can spend a morning, afternoon or entire day in camps that teach everything from cooking and crime solving to robot and Web site building.

Eleven camps are offered for students in grades four through eight. Each one-week camp is three hours in either the morning or the afternoon, with the exception of Let's Act, Let's Sing, which lasts all day. The costs range from $125 to $135 a week.

"Kids can spend the day at the camp -- attend a course in the morning, have a supervised lunch and then go to another course in the afternoon," said Melanie Brletic, Kids' College coordinator.

Camps for fourth- through eighth-graders are Robot Building, Digital Photography, Web Design, Rocket Making, Cooking with the Pros and Let's Act, Let's Sing.

Camps for fifth- through eighth-graders are Junior Fire Marshal, Fun with Drums, AweSome Math, Crime Scene Investigator and Lego Mindstorms Robotics.

Camps are taught by professionals in each field; some are local teachers, Penn State staffers or local professionals.

Vincent Waller, chief of Police Services and Safety for the McKeesport campus, teaches the popular CSI camp. Last year, the campers solved a murder case. The ''victim'' was a silver inflatable dummy appropriately named "Mr. Silverman."

"The kids loved it. They had to figure out clues and come up with suspects. It was good fun," Mr. Waller said. "The kids learned about fingerprinting and made fake blood.''

Like last year, the camps this year will attract about 200 participants.

Ms. Brletic said she has the challenge of coming up with ideas and new this year is Junior Fire Marshal, taught by McKeesport firefighters.

"She's put a really nice program together," said Gil Loshelder, an engineering lab supervisor for the campus' Academic Affairs Department who teaches the robotics camp.

More advanced than the Robot Building Camp, this camp is designed to allow kids to explore the concept of building and to use their imaginations to construct devices using a 700-piece kit with motors.

Aspiring young chefs in the Cooking with the Pros camp will make something each day and eat it.

Students in Let's Act, Let's Sing practice theater arts and life skills such as speaking, focusing and listening in addition to singing and dancing. A performance is held Friday for the campers and their families.

"Fridays are busy," Ms. Brletic said. "The kids get to show their parents what they've learned."

What campers and parents will hear on Friday will be drum beats. Fun with Drums instructor Dr. Tony Mitchell, who works on campus and is a percussionist, said his camp gives youngsters an opportunity to practice and perform several different styles of drumming.

To promote Kids' College, Ms. Brletic visits local school districts, including McKeesport, West Mifflin, Gateway, South Allegheny and West Jefferson.

For more information or a brochure, call 412-675-9040, or register online at www.ga.psu.edu.