The Colorado School of Mines will initiate a 3 week residential Young Scholars project for 30 students in grades 7-8 in mathematics. This program for American Indian middle school students will be held in conjunction with an NSF Teacher Enhancement Project. Teachers will be selected by AISES and CSM and will, in turn, participate in the selection of high potential students from their schools to be in the Young Scholars Program. The emphases will be on critical thinking, problem solving, use of similar triangles and trigonometry to estimate heights attained by the student constructed rockets, and LOGO to create American Indian designs and tessellations. Each student will complete a math/science fair project with the advice of a mentor who is a professional mathematician or computer scientist. Career exploration will be emphasized. The student-teacher pairing will support follow-up.
