Loyola University Chicago in conjunction with Aspira of Illinois, will offer a bilingual (English/Spanish) six week, commuter Summer Science Camp integrating computer science, engineering, and physics for thirty-five Hispanic middle school students. The program continues with a thirteen-week academic year follow-up. The interdisciplinary activities begin with students being introduced to basic computer architecture, after which they assemble IBM-compatible computers for subsequently use in the program. Each week, the students experiment in three distinct labs: Digital electronics, Engineering design and control, and Computer science programming, where computer concepts are introduced through programming in Pascal language. The summer session includes career-oriented field trips to the facilities of Argonne National Laboratories, Northwestern University, Chicago Research & Trade (a securities trading firm), and People's Gas. Students are paid a $120 stipend to cover their transportation expenses and are granted a high school course credit through the Chicago Public Schools. Loyola/Aspira SSC replicates the DOE Loyola/Aspira Pre-Freshman Enrichment Project (PREP), that in turn is a bilingual version of an NSF Young Scholars Project redesigned for younger students. The NSF Young Scholars Project has already significantly affected minority representation in computer science studies in Illinois. Loyola/Aspira SSC's overall mission is to intellectually nurture Hispanic students of limited opportunity, to provide them with interest-stimulating experiences that enable and motivate them to take college preparatory courses in science, engineering, and mathematics, and to promote ultimately their entry into sophisticated SEM careers. ***
