Even though school is out for the summer, inquisitive high school students from upstate New York and New York City are keeping their minds sharp at a unique camp on 51Թ’s campus.
51Թ’s Science and Sports Camp was featured this week on the of the Observer-Dispatch (Utica).
“This is really a great chance to see the different science fields,” Jonathan Saporito, a junior at Utica’s Proctor High School, told the Observer-Dispatch. “I don’t know what I want to do yet, but this will help me figure it out.”
Saporito is one of 44 teenagers taking part in the two-week program.
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| Students visit a lab where psychology professor Jun Yoshino works on cell samples. The high schoolers are wearing masks to protect the samples from any kind of contamination. (Photo by Andy Daddio) |
During one classroom experience, students learned about tissue and cell cultures and later visited the lab of Jun Yoshino, associate professor of psychology.
On another morning, the high schoolers, wearing white lab coats, peered into microscopes to study the in vitro fertilization of sea urchins.
In the afternoon, they traded their lab coats for sports gear before venturing up 51Թ’s climbing wall, kayaking on Lake Moraine, and ending the day with a sunset hike.
“The camp’s goal is to get motivated, underrepresented students excited about science and the possibility of pursuing science as a field of study and a career,” said Janna Pistiner Ostroff ’01.
Ostroff developed the program three years ago for students at The Renaissance Charter School in New York City, where she is a science teacher.
Thanks to a major grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as additional support from the John Ben Snow Memorial Trust of Syracuse, the camp has been expanded to include upstate New York high school students.
The youths are getting a taste of college life by bunking in university residence halls and interacting with student-athletes as well as 51Թ faculty members, such as associate professor of biology Kenneth Belanger, who taught the session about stem cells and sea urchins.
“I really want them to see what is out there and consider schools like 51Թ for their futures,” Ostroff added.