Posts from — April 2007

Contributing Author: Norman Crampton

When the school year ends in Oklahoma this June, 48 at-risk children from around the state will gather on the campus of Cameron University, in Lawton, for some “post-graduate” work.

Living in dorms, just like college students, this select group of boys and girls will spend 10 days doing field research as young scientists.  Their mission: gathering water samples at waterlife areas in the Lawton area.

Back in the chemistry lab on campus they’ll don white coats, test the samples for pollutants like e-coli bacteria, and report their findings to local water management officials.  The long-term objective is to remediate water pollution problems.

But the immediate objective is to help turn a small group of at-risk 8th graders toward better prospects in school and life.

Frank Zittle, coordinator of the academic research center at Cameron—he’s the campus funding guru—was a key player in finding the $100,000 it will take to pay for the June session.

When faculty initially came to Dr. Zittle with the idea for a summer session for at-risk kids, he turned to GrantSelect, keying in broad search terms like “science” and “at-risk.” He refined the search to “health sciences,” and that led to the Oklahoma Department of Education and to a federal pass-through grant supporting programs like the one that Cameron University faculty had in mind.

They’re calling the program “Science Detectives.”  (T-shirts are in the works.) The young detectives will make poster presentations for a meeting with local and state officials at the end of the session—possibly the basis of clean-up programs.

The main benefit is far more direct. “A residential camp like this is a good opportunity for junior high kids to see what college is like,” Zittle pointed out.  It could be that some future scientific careers will be launched among the at-risk kids attending the Cameron program this June.

Zittle knows for certain that 48 eighth graders will have an opportunity to see what college is all about, and that experience alone makes it very worthwhile.