The Arizona State University will initiate a four-week, commuter and residential, Early Alert Initiative Young Scholars project in Mathematics which will offer enrichment activities for 60 precollege students entering grade 8. The first two weeks of the program will take place on the Navajo Reservation. Participants will be introduced to the experimental nature of mathematics. The topics of number theory, discrete probability, graph theory, and combinatorics will be taught and used as experimental material. The students will learn to write computer programs to implement mathematical routines for use in checking conjectures. Participants also will learn problem-solving techniques. Problems will be selected and collected from several sources including the Hungarian publication, "Matematika Lapok." Various science activities will be correlated with the mathematical focus. For example, participants will learn about the mathematics of lenses and will build a four-inch reflector telescope which will then be used to explore the beautiful night sky above the Navajo Reservation. Students will spend the last two weeks on the campus of the Arizona State University, where they will be given the opportunity to meet with science faculty members and to attend science demonstrations. They also will meet with personnel from the admissions and financial aid offices.
