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July 30, 2007

It's summer school, with robots and pizza

By Hugh Powell (831) 459-2495; hpowell@ucsc.edu

UC Santa Cruz is getting a glimpse of its future this summer, as middle-school and high-school students take over classrooms and labs to learn marine biology, nanotechnology, robotics, video game design, and other subjects from UC faculty.

The campus is hosting two concurrent programs--COSMOS and Girls in Engineering--that together bring 180 students from sixth through twelfth grades to the campus, some to stay for a full month of intensive learning, as well as a little playing. The programs are selective and designed to improve the chances that students with an aptitude for math and science will pursue their dreams in college.

"We want to encourage bright minds to stay in math, science, and engineering, and to think big and not lose that interest," said Nafeesa Owens, who is director of Girls in Engineering and COSMOS, the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science. "In the schools there may be one in 100 students who really love math, and this is a place they can keep and nurture that interest."

Throughout the two programs, students get a glimpse of their own futures as well. The middle-school students in Girls in Engineering--representing eight area schools plus one home-schooled student--take math classes from local high-school teachers. They eat lunches alongside the COSMOS high-school students and attend lectures by university faculty.

On a recent Wednesday, the 30 Girls in Engineering students were splitting time between programming robots and inventing cars, bridges, and towers. Looking slightly too small for their college-sized chairs, the girls programmed motorized robots to move on command, listen for handclaps, identify strips of tape on the floor, and swipe at colored ping-pong balls.

Another lab was strewn with sail-car, bridge, and tower prototypes the girls had designed over the past few days. Guided only by their imaginations, each team of three used beads, drinking straws, and a few stick pins to build a car. One sheet of paper, sometimes inventively cut or folded, served as a sail. A desktop fan provided the wind.

The students also built bridges using a sheet of construction paper and some masking tape. Their designs included two varieties of arched bridge, one bridge with a triangular cross-section, and a double I-beam structure. This last design, the winner, stood strong while the students loaded it with a five-pound weight.

"We are trying to get kids to recognize that math is important in their life, because they might be good at it but they don't know what to do with it," said Carrol Moran, executive director of the university's Educational Partnership Center, which oversees the two programs. "With engineering in particular, students often don't get to the interesting part until later in college. This is hands-on, real, and concrete."

Over curly fries, pizza, and cocoa puffs, the girls agreed. "We love it. You get to learn lots of math stuff, like how to build a breadboard [a handmade circuitboard]," said Emily Rose, a New Brighton Middle School sixth-grader.

They also judged the food at college "way better" than at their own schools.

Having a girls-only classroom was seen as a plus. "Boys are so competitive. They make you feel small compared to them. And they say stupid things like, 'If you weren't a girl I'd punch you,'" said Clara Yuh, an eighth-grader at Scotts Valley Middle School.

"But with just girls, if everybody has a different idea, we don't just pick one," said eighth-grader Bridget Nieto, of Rolling Hills Middle School. "We come up with a design that includes all our ideas."

Owens encourages the middle-school Girls in Engineering students to move on to the COSMOS program in high school. Girls in Engineering is in only its second year, but already the COSMOS rolls include one alumna, Teresa Fukuda.

"Looking back, it really helped me. I learned about COSMOS, about applying to college, about careers I could have. And since a lot of the speakers were also girls, it was really inspirational," said Fukuda, who is a ninth-grader at Harbor High School in Santa Cruz.

COSMOS programs are co-ed and run on four UC campuses each summer: Irvine, Davis, San Diego, and Santa Cruz. Since 2000, the UCSC program has drawn 350–450 applicants per year for the 150 available slots. Eighth-graders through seniors from all over the state live on campus for the month-long course. Owens said she tailors her recruiting program to reach bright students regardless of income. The program offers full financial aid to all who qualify.

Students attend one of nine clusters, each with a different focus and each taught by university faculty. During a recent visit, one cluster analyzed video game design with Jim Whitehead, associate professor of computer science. Ali Shakouri, associate professor of electrical engineering, talked to another group about nanoscale cooling and power generation. In yet another classroom, Yonatan Katznelson, lecturer in economics, tackled logic problems with linear algebra.

Outside of class, COSMOS participants stay on the go with field trips to the Exploratorium, a talent show, the COSMOS Olympics, and a trip to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Some field trips are tailored for each cluster: budding marine biologists go tidepooling or whale watching; the physics cluster visits the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; and chemistry students study polymers at Marianne's Ice Cream. Workshops brief students on how to apply for college, which courses to take, and what to expect in graduate school or medical school.

The Girls in Engineering session ended July 20 with a robotics demonstration for parents. COSMOS ends August 4, when students present results of their final projects to fellow students and parents. Some will also present proposals for science-fair research they'd like to do, vying for nine $500 Intel research awards.

For students it may seem like a month-long barrage of information and experience. But for Owens, it's part of a healthy development. "Many girls don't know what to expect. They're not sure college is for them," she said. "But starting with Girls in Engineering, and then COSMOS, they get to see what a dorm is and see what a dining hall is. They get to go to class and go to the library. It becomes clear to them that going on to college is a natural progression after high school."

Additional information is available on the web sites for Girls in Engineering and COSMOS.

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