9450588 Mappen The Douglass Science Institute (DSI) Program Series provides in-depth "hands-on" mathematics and science experiences in a single-sex environment for high school women to encourage their persistence in mathematics and science studies. It is planned as a multi-year intervention effort. Research and general literature on the underrepresentation of women in the mathematics, science, and engineering pipeline, as well as on the education of girls, provide evidence that intervention programs during the high school years are essential to reverse the attrition of girls from mathematics and science studies. Differential treatment, lack of encouragement, and of knowledge about career options in mathematics and science, lead to negative attitudes towards these disciplines, limited participation in curricular and extracurricular mathematics and science activities, and lower achievement rates. The Series is offered by the Douglass Project for Rutgers Women in Math, Science, and Engineering, and is held at Douglass College, the women's undergraduate unit of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. The Program Series is a student-centered model that provides a continuum of "hands-on" involvement in mathematics, science, and engineering, as well as motivational activities, for high school women over a four-year period. Students begin the program during the summer preceeding the ninth grade, and will be able to continue with it over the following three summers. The program for ninth graders is the initial phase of the series. Students who complete the ninth grade program are encouraged to apply for programs which will take placed during the summers preceding their tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade years. The Series incorporates many of the characteristics which have been found to be integral components of "exemplary" intervention programs, including "hand-on" instruction and cooperative group work, a multi-year, residential experience on a college campus, rol e models, and activities for parents. Funding from NSF will be used for evaluation and modification of the 10th grade program (to be offered for the first time in 1994), and for development of the first year of the 11th grade program (1995). The segment for Ninth Grade Women is funded primarily by the AT&T Foundation. (Other supporters of the Program Series include the Merck Institute for Science Education, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute, and the Schering-Plough Foundation.) The Series can serve as model for others in efforts to increase the numbers of young women in the mathematics, science, and engineering. ***
