The Pennsylvania State University will initiate a four-week, residential, interdisciplinary Young Scholars project for 72 students entering grades 11 and 12. Eight participants will be placed in on-going research laboratories on projects leading to specific research goals. The laboratory experience will mimic today's real world, research and development as a joint effort and teamwork. There will be three different participating laboratories in each of the Colleges of Agriculture, Earth and Mineral Sciences, and Science. Collaborating engineering faculty and graduate students will participate in each laboratory. To encourage interaction between participants, the composition of the groups for other planned activities will be different from that of the research-team groups and different from each other. These activities include: communication skills, research methodology, envisioning quantitative information, library techniques, research talks, career panels, career mentoring by graduate students, open house at the four colleges involved, science teaching as a career, career counseling, gender issues discussion, science and engineering course requirements and descriptions, the social context of technology, and an all-day research retreat.
