Founded in 1979, the Science Skills Center (SSC) is a non-profit community based program which encourages young minority and female students to pursue careers in science, mathematics, and technology. At its current two sites in Brooklyn, N.Y., approximately 400 students, ages six to eighteen, are enrolled in programs where they take accelerated courses in biology, chemistry, physical science, rocketry, oceanography, botany, and mathematics. This summer science camp expands two of the existing sites to include an additional total of one hundred and fifty African-American and Hispanic middle school students. At one site, the Summer Science Institute, a group of students spend one week in each of six areas (i.e. chemistry, biochemistry, biology, botany, computers,electronics and chess/mathematics). Students also take weekly field trips to museums or engineering firms. At another site, the Science Skills Center and IBM have developed an engineering BASE (Building Access to Science Enrichment) program, a program whose goal is to expose talented minority youth to careers in engineering. Students get to observe first-hand science principles at IBM's Brooklyn facility and receive instruction from IBM engineers in several courses including systems architecture, chemical and electrical engineering and computer science.
