Brian Crandall of Mad Science shares his experience

Each session (AM and PM) is three hours per day on a specific topic. When the children arrive, we run a themed game as an "ice-breaker", since the kids do not necessarily know each other. We usually have a discussion about the day's topic, followed by an activity where the kids work in a small group to explore the concept being discussed. Then the campers work on a take-home project related to the day's theme - the kids have at least one take-home project per day. The Mad Science instructors alternate between indoor and outdoor activities throughout the day, and take water and bathroom breaks whenever necessary.

Each Mad Science camp topic has a different "flavor"... Red Hot Robots, Crazy ChemWorks, and Ancient Adventures & Buried Bones are more structured. Mad Machines & Crazy Contraptions, Nature Adventure, and NASA are more creative and free flowing. Junior Explorers and Science Mysteries & Fantastic Forces are both a "sampler" of different science topics where the campers explore different disciplines each day.
Specific activities depend on the camp topic. In our NASA camp, the Space Travel Day would involve a discussion of the challenges of space travel (How do Astronauts eat, sleep... and even where do they go to the bathroom?!). This is followed by small groups running though several "astronaut training" activities, and working on rocket designs. The kids would then each build a rocket, and while the glue dries the instructors would take the group outside to launch (and hopefully retrieve) several rockets.

If a child is staying all day, they would have lunch with our staff from 12:00 until 1:00, and then start another camp topic for the afternoon. By having two camp topics every day, the kids staying all day get to "mix-it-up" and continue to have fun from 9:00 AM until 4:00 PM.