Herein, we describe an effective and tested model of a week-long summer science intensive program for high school students that aimed to elaborate on concepts covered in a high school chemistry or biology course, and to provide high school students an opportunity to learn about studying and pursuing careers in the sciences. The program was…

Recent and exciting discoveries in astronomy and cosmology have inspired many high school students to learn about these fields. A particularly fascinating consequence of general relativity at the forefront of modern cosmology research is gravitational lensing, the bending of light rays that pass near massive objects. Gravitational lensing enables…

For more than thirty years, personnel from the University of Louisville J.B. Speed School of Engineering have presented a summer program targeting high school students historically underrepresented in engineering fields. INSPIRE provides these students with an introduction to careers in engineering and assists the students in planning their…

This article reports on an alumni study of middle school participants in a university-based science camp; at the time of the study the youth were completing their junior or senior year of high school. The science- and technology-intensive program was set in an intentionally designed positive youth development context. The camp was free to youth…

Job creation and finding new sources of renewable energy have been inextricably linked in recent months; green-sector growth is seen as vital to grow the economy and create new jobs. There appears to be a great deal of agreement on the need for alternative energy sources; however, there is also a great deal of work ahead for the U.S. in developing…

Recent decline of students pursuing engineering degree programs is a great concern for many higher education authorities including Federal and State governments. Existing programs in high schools have not yet produced the desired results. Consequently, a number of initiatives to remedy this situation have been proposed and implemented. One such…

Through two stories of youth voice, learning, and identity development in an afterschool science program for girls only, we show the ways in which such programs can be understood as important identity-building practices. We describe key dimensions of a socio-cultural approach to youth voice, learning, and identity, situated also in the context of…

A robotics team from Muncie, Indiana--the PhyXTGears--is made up of high school students from throughout Delaware County. The group formed as part of the FIRST Robotics program (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an international program founded by inventor Dean Kamen in which students work with professional engineers and…

The Air Toxics under the Big Sky program developed at the University of Montana is a regional outreach and education initiative that offers a yearlong exploration of air quality and its relation to respiratory health. The program was designed to connect university staff and resources with rural schools enabling students to learn and apply science…

Despite decades of precollege science education programs, African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans remain critically underrepresented in science and health professions. This report describes college and career outcomes among graduates of the Stanford Medical Youth Science Program (SMYSP), a 5-week summer residential program for low-income…

The Building Migratory Bridges (BOMB) program--a collaboration between the Marvel wood School and Audubon Sharon in Connecticut and Conservation Research Education Action (CR EA), a U.S. not-for-profit in Panama--uses nontropical migratory bird research in the United States and Panama to demonstrate how negative environmental impacts in one…

This article presents an interview with Paul Neff, a veteran teacher at Spokane, Washington's Lewis & Clark High. Paul Neff recently earned a $4,930 grant from the Toshiba America Foundation to purchase global-positioning systems and digital cameras for the Outdoor Living class he just took over two years ago. In an interview, Neff talks about…

"Partners in Science" is a cooperative program between Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and area high schools in the community surrounding our Connecticut campus. It is a two-phase program that introduces high school students and teachers to the world of drug discovery and leading-edge pharmaceutical research. Phase 1 involves…

The Rutgers Astrophysics Institute is a program in which gifted high school students learn about contemporary science and its methods, and conduct independent authentic research using real-time data. The students use the processes of science to acquire knowledge, and serve as cognitive apprentices to an expert astrophysicist. A variety of…