From Wile E. Coyote to the game of pool:
Summer High helps students stretch minds
For many high school students and teachers, summer offers a break from
academics. But the unique hands-on courses offered through the Brown Summer
High School, now in its 28th year, are so enticing, some 350 students and 70
teachers take four weeks out of their vacations each summer to participate.
This year's session, the program's 28th, will be held at Brown University from
July 1-26 from 8 a.m.-noon Mondays through Fridays. Classes are open to
students who will enter grades nine through twelve in September. The $75 fee
covers books and materials, which the students may keep. A limited amount of
financial aid is available. Children of Brown faculty and staff are welcomed to
attend.
Students select two classes from a list of 17 interdisciplinary courses that
combine small group discussions, reading, writing and hands-on lab work. The
courses include:
- Is It Alive? - Students will use the tools of science to explore living
things under the microscope, in tide pools and other environments.
- What Floats Your Boat? - Students will design and build a water craft
strong enough to hold one student.
- Pool: What's the Angle? - The class will use the concepts of geometry,
trigonometry and physics to understand - and play - the game of pool.
- Can Wile E. Coyote Ever Catch the Roadrunner?: Creating Complex Inventions to
Perform Simple Tasks - Students will build devices that use a complex
combination of simple machines to perform a simple task, a la cartoon character
Wile E. Coyote and cartoonist Rube Goldberg.
BSHS is an example of an ongoing University-community partnership. Courses are
taught primarily by teams of students enrolled in the Master of Arts in
Teaching and Undergraduate Teacher Education programs at Brown. A number of
area teachers serve as mentors, assisting student teachers with curriculum and
lesson planning. In addition, several courses are taught by teams of master
teachers from around the country whose schools are members of the Coalition of
Essential Schools. These teachers are working at BSHS with support by a grant
from the National Science Foundation.
The deadline to apply for Brown Summer High School is June 1. For more
information or to request application material, contact the Brown Summer High
School Office at 863-1677 or the Brown Education Department at 863-2407, or
write to Brown Summer High School, Box 1938.