SSC-9450395 Alabama School of Fine Arts Birmingham, AL Froning, Michael and Marian Higginbotham "Summer Science In Birmingham" The seeds of Participation in mathematics and science are sown at an early age for all students. These seeds whither for many young people regardless of background. Minority students in urban settings often face special difficulties which make success in math and science problematic. There is a crisis in the level of participation in science-related careers by non-Asian minorities in the United States. Pressures on students to stay away from difficult coursework in junior high school are too strong to ignore. The mission of the Alabama School of Fine Arts Mathematics and Science Program includes spreading the word that success in mathematics and science is a possibility and necessity for all students. Under a U.S. Department of Education grant the school has expanded its outreach efforts for adults in the form of teacher training and support programs. This program provides equivalent efforts for students. Summer Science in Birmingham is a four-week Summer "camp" for fifty minority students entering the eighth grade in the Birmingham City Public Schools. There will be twenty daily sessions, each from 8:30 am until 1:30 pm, lunch included. During these sessions students will be exposed to exciting scientific and mathematical activities whose focus will be on motivation students to continue their study of math and science all the way through high school. At the same time as students are being motivated to study they will assisted with skills and strategies to improve their performance in their regular school programs and to make their study more efficient. There is no cost to the students for the program. Goals of the program include the following: 1) to provide a four- week Summer Science Camp for 50 minority students who are finishing the seventh grade from the Birmingham City Schools; 2) to provide a curriculum that will emphasize investigative activities in math and science and provide support for basic skill weaknesses discovered during the Camp; 3) to increase the participant students' enthusiasm for mathematics and science; 4) to increase participant students' awareness and knowledge of both the historical and current roles of minority scientists and mathematicians; 5) to provide an eight-session (once per month on Saturday mornings) follow-up workshop series for the participants; 6) to offer the participants' teachers special programs and in- school services during the following school year through the already established ASFA Outreach program; and 7) to provide knowledge of, and access to, programs for older students in science and mathematics including possible admission to the ASFA Mathematics and Science Program. Participants in this Summer Science camp will see science in action. They will see people like themselves being scientists and mathematicians. They will become "doers" of science and mathematics and active participants in their own learning. Teachers in the program will be mentors, not lecturers. Students will be learners, not listerners. Success in mathematics and science will be the focus of everyone in the program.
