Goals - from S.T.A.R. to Launch-IT
Since 1989, Lehigh University Office of Academic Outreach and Special Projects has conducted the S.T.A.R. (Students That Area Ready) Academies, a year round intervention Academies to promote academic achievement and college placement of economically and academically disadvantaged and/or at-risk middle and high school students in Greater Lehigh Valley (Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton and surrounding communities). S.T.A.R.’s goal is to recruit and retain minority students in the college-bound STEM pipeline, giving them the incentives, skills, and support systems they need to succeed in school and pursue higher education. Its primary features are: intensive tutoring and mentoring by Lehigh students, hands-on STEM laboratory experiences by faculty, a parent program with strong involvement, positive role models, career and college counseling, study skills, and internships in STEM fields for high school juniors and seniors. Co-PI Henry Odi is the Executive Director for the department where the S.T.A.R Academies is housed and the other co-PIs are actively involved with S.T.A.R.
S.T.A.R. currently involves over 35 local middle and high schools in a weekend program. This year, over 100 sixth to twelfth grade students are participating. The Academies has remarkable retention and graduation rates: over 70% of the students return from year to year and more than 96% complete the program each year; 100% of the students graduate from high school and better than 95% have gone on to college; 100% have graduated from college within five years; over 85% of the parents are involved; retention is better than 96% for college tutors and 100% for faculty. S.T.A.R. includes 75-80% underrepresented minority students.
As a result of the Academies’ success, a three-week summer program was created in 1992 for rising 6th through 9th grade students who are economically and academically disadvantaged and/or at-risk. The program was developed as a result of the need to expose students from the underrepresented backgrounds to the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The instructors include Lehigh faculty, graduate and undergraduate students in STEM, and math and science teachers from ten local schools. Of the 35-40 students who participate each year, 99% complete the program and all have continued on to participate in the S.T.A.R academic year program.
Discussions with Lehigh University faculty and the S.T.A.R Academies Board have recently focused on program expansion through the development of new components dedicated to specialized academic field(s) on a year round basis. The new component must focus on diversifying the pipeline of students who pursue academic field(s) of critical importance to future workforce development. To enhance the quality and diversity of the American workforce, it is essential to encourage minority and women students to pursue college degrees in IT fields such as computer science, where the demand in the work force is expected to grow for the next decade.
LAUNCH-IT will create year-round programs, each beginning with a three-week summer program, for three groups of students: rising 7th and 8th graders, rising 9th and 10th graders, and rising 11th and 12th graders. With the first group, the goal is to teach skills for conducting science, math and technology ‘missions’ using remotely controlled robots in a simulated Martian landscape that has been created in the basement of a local middle school. The curricular materials for this program will be new and innovative, building upon existing curricular materials that students currently learn about mobile robotics in 6th-8th grade in curricula that LVPTF teams have created in two middle schools. With the second group, the goal is to create a web-based juke box or iPod as an interactive, animated web site using Flash and ActionScript, giving them a taste for programming, user interface design and accessing music files on the network, enhancing what middle schoolers learn about Flash animation in LVPTF curricula, and also addressing security and copyright issues. With the third group, the goal is to prepare students for the AP Java exam for college credit, building on the introductory “design-first” course for object-oriented software development in Java that a LVPTF team has developed and introduced in a local high school. The new curricula will incorporate inquiry-based activities and multimedia e-learning. Throughout the year, undergraduate students from Lehigh, Northampton Community College and other local colleges will mentor LAUNCH-IT students to succeed in their educational and career goals and expose them to other exciting applications of IT via field trips to local IT-oriented business partners and science centers. The anticipated outcomes are to expand the success rates of S.T.A.R. to a wider group of students, at least half of them from minority groups and over half of them female, specifically headed toward IT college majors and careers.
In addition, LAUNCH-IT faculty and graduate students will offer to train teachers at other schools to learn and use successful LVPTF curricula for IT, both regionally and nationally. The anticipated outcomes regionally are expanding the impact of LVPTF curricula on minority and female students and increasing access in the region to LAUNCH-IT