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Past Summer Programs - Why Plastics?
Why Plastics? was offered to elementary school students (grades 3-5) and middle school students(grades 6-8) during the summer of 2006 and 2007. This was a day program when parents dropped off their children before 9:00am and picked them up around 4:00pm. All students needed to furnish their own transportation to and from campus. Below is some information on the program.
Plastics? is a pre-college course designed to provide a high-quality science educational experience to pre-college students so as to encourage them to pursue science and engineering careers through hands-on activities in polymers and plastics, cutting edge scientific experiments, enrichment activities, and effective mentoring.
Polymer chemistry lessons involve experiments, computer activities, and written exercises. Mentoring and workshops - led by Rensselaer faculty, students, staff, and local professionals - on a range of topics include the description of the roles and responsibilities of being a scientist, laboratory safety, polymer chemistry lessons and experiments designed to promote the relevance of science in our daily life, visual learning through computer simulation models in mathematics, leadership and career development, and admissions and financial aid information.
The Summer Why Plastics?™ program was funded by grants from The William Gundry Broughton Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
