SSC-9353281 East Bay Consortium of Educ. Oakland, CA Jaquez, Dolores and Gee, Victor "Pre-Collegiate Community Laboratory" This summer science camp, to be operated by the East Bay Consortium of Education Institutions, Inc., and interagency collaboration of 19 Oakland-area schools, colleges, and universities, will serve 50 Black and Hispanic seventh and eighth graders who attend seven schools in a severely educationally and economically disadvantaged area of Southeast Oakland (CA). The project site will be Merritt College (Peralta Colleges). Learning experiences will be offered for five weeks per summer, with 12 Saturday follow-up activities scheduled during the following academic year. Classroom instruction will follow an integrated, multidisciplinary, thematically organized model. Themes have been chosen which highlight applications of science and mathematics to events, issues, and past-times of interest to the young target population. These include the Loma Prieta earthquake and the accompanying collapse of the Nimitz Freeway, the recent Berkeley fire, issues related to pollution, development, and economic potential of San Francisco Bay; the physics of sports movement; and implications of mathematics for strong and durable construction. Each class section of 25 students will be under the care of an instructional team composed of a fully credentialed teacher quali- fied in both mathematics and science, an upper division mathematics or science major planning to teach in the public schools, and an older high school peer mentor/role model. The instructional team will themselves model appropriate individual responsibility and cooperative problem solving. Instruction will follow accepted research practice. Participants will first observe phenomena and gather data. They will then analyze this information in an effort to form explanatory/ predictive hypotheses. After testing their assumptions, they will fine-tune their hypotheses and share their fi ndings with others. Classroom activities will be supplemented by field study/research throughout the greater Oakland area. A culminating event of each summer session will be a two and one-half day ecological camping expedition at Pinnacles National Monument, jointly sponsored by Naturalists at Large, who will provide onsite explanations and guidance. Additional field experiences will be offered in academic-year follow-up sessions.
