This project will develop a model science lab at Chesapeake College's Cambridge Satellite Center in Dorchester County. Through the use of innovative, hands-on approaches as well as the direct use of multi-media, data manipulation and simulational software, this laboratory will be used to involve students in science and technology, help them to establish a science knowledge base from which to work, and encourage them to follow a career path in a science or engineering field. Faculty will revise the approach currently employ in teaching the basic biological and physical sciences to provide an enhanced learning environment that will call upon students' natural curiosity as a starting point in the design of experiments. The Cambridge Satellite Center is located in Dorchester County, whose population is 27.9 percent African- American. In 1991, 41% of all first-time, full-time freshmen from Dorchester County attended Chesapeake College, as did 79 percent of all part-time undergraduates in the County. It is anticipated that this grant will markedly improve the recruitment of science candidates from a targeted minority population that resides in the area.
