Eleven high school students participated in a one-week STEM summer camp focused on designing and building parachutes to deliver fragile objects safely. Using the Engineering Design Process (EDP) as a framework, students explored how canopy size affects performance. They applied physics concepts such as terminal velocity, forces, and acceleration,…

Describes the Student Science Training Program (SSTP) held in Hawaii for 30 high school students gifted in science and math. The seven-week program presents coursework, laboratory experiments, recitation/discussion, computer programming, field trips, research participation, and socialization. (MVL)

The University of Alabama Summer Physics Teachers Institute is a cooperative program of the university's College of Education and College of Arts and Sciences for noncertified physics teachers. The program features observation of master teachers, seminars with visiting scholars, follow-up evaluation by participants, state funding, and recognition…

Students (n=128) enrolled in 8 summer intensive physics courses for academically gifted students participated in a study to assess the effectiveness of such courses compared to ordinary year-long high school physics courses. Average gains achieved by students were comparable to those achieved by students in the ordinary-length courses. (Contains…

Describes the approach and programming emphasis of the National University of Distance Education (UNED). Specifically explains the university's summer residential workshops that focused on basic physics phenomena that were laboratory oriented. Includes examples of the course requirements and samples of the participants' opinions about the course.…

Project SOAR (Stress on Analytic Reasoning) is a pre-college summer program for natural, health, and mathematics science majors jointly developed and conducted by the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics/Computer Science and Physics/Pre-Engineering at Xavier University of Louisiana. The program objective was to increase performance in…

This manual was developed to provide guidance to individuals working in Project SOAR (Stress on Analytical Reasoning), a pre-freshman summer program for science majors anticipating matriculation at Xavier University of Louisiana. Following an overview of Xavier University and Project SOAR and an outline of general instructions, specific…

Describes a six-week summer program for gifted high school students in mathematics, science, and computer programing, conducted by the Center for Mathematical Services at the University of South Florida. Discusses the assessment tests used and the courses and topics taught, particularly the chemistry concepts and skills. (TW)

The course outlines presented in this report are intended to be used to teach astrophysics to nonscience majors at the junior and senior college level. An extensive set of notes are included which can be useful to an instructor as guidelines for presentation. Additional equipment and references for use in teaching astrophysics are suggested. (SA)

Discusses how, in two three-week sessions, the Terre Haute (Indiana) college offers selected students a hands-on approach to all aspects of engineering from design and lab work to technical writing. Describes a group project requiring students to study and experiment with simple research problems. Lists 20 project ideas. (MVL)

Provides selected abstracts from the Computers in Physics Instruction conference held on August 1-5, 1988. Topics include: wave and particle motion, the CT programing language, microcomputer-based laboratories, student written simulations, concept maps, summer institutes, computer bulletin boards, interactive video, and videodisks. (MVL)