Camp T.U.R.F. is a two-week, residential academy at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Students will interact with professors and explore a variety of careers in horticulture and landscaping, with hands-on activities in botanical gardens, field research stations, a turfgrass research center and greenhouses, as well as local museums and special OSU facilities such as the Insect Zoo and H. S. Mendenhall Observatory. Helpful sessions about college admission, financial aid and study skills will be interspersed throughout the academy. Evening and recreational activities are also planned.
Contact: Shelley Mitchell, Shelley.mitchell@okstate.edu or 405.744.5755
The OSU High School Aerospace Academy makes it possible for 30 students who are beginning grades 11 and 12 to actively study aerospace education concepts. The academy strives to nurture students’ interest in technology, biology, chemistry, physics, earth science and mathematics, to demonstrate how these disciplines can be integrated into aerospace education studies, and to support the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS). This two-week experience provides on-campus classroom activities and regional field trips, including trips to Oklahoma aviation industries and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to study aerospace career options, technology applications to the aerospace industry, and the impact of aviation and space exploration on society.
Contact: Dr. Steven K. Marks, steve.marks@okstate.edu or 405.744.8125
One of the fastest growing technologies is use of hi-tech sensors. “Smart sensors” are being used in hundreds of application areas, like environmental monitoring, homeland security, medicine, aerospace and automobiles. Students will use smart sensor concepts to stimulate interest in science, math and technology, during a weeklong residential academy. The students will develop a smart sensor system for steering an autonomous race car.
Contact: Jovette Dew, Jovette.dew@okstate.edu or 405.744.2920
This academy offers two weeklong sessions providing upcoming 11th- and 12th-grade students with hands-on experience in the basic areas of mathematics that reinforce the college study of physics, engineering and mathematics. Areas covered include probability, logic statistics and calculus. The sessions will emphasize the use of extensive symbolic notation required to represent mathematical ideas. In each weeklong session, students move from concrete examples to more abstract ones using hands-on methods. Students will extend the notation from the concrete cases in ways to represent the more abstract ones. They will compare and contrast the use of technology for undergraduate physics, math and science students. Twenty-five students will be accepted for each weeklong session.
Contact: Chris Elliott, celliott@ou.edu, or visit http://youth.ou.edu/
This academy offers 30 rising 11th- and 12th-grade students a one-week opportunity to study the five architectural disciplines in the University of Oklahoma’s College of Architecture. By incorporating all five disciplines – architecture, interior design, construction science, landscape architecture and regional city planning – the academy will introduce students to an interdisciplinary study in areas not available in their high schools. Students will live in university residence halls and eat in Couch Cafeteria, giving students a real “feel” for college life. OU student organizations in the College of Architecture will provide programming in the evenings for the academy students so they will have interaction with OU students majoring in architecture.
Contact: Chris Elliott, celliott@ou.edu, or visit http://youth.ou.edu/
This academy offers two, two-week sessions focusing on two disciplines in the life sciences – botany and zoology – and uses the “outdoors” as the classroom. Students will study organisms in their natural habitats and participate in lectures and discussions on research methodology. Students will gather insect and plant collections and write scientific papers based on their extensive field studies. The combination of field studies and laboratory sessions with a “hands-on approach” will assist the students in developing such skills as observation, measurement, classification, experimentation, interpretation, communication, modeling and safety. Students will gain first-hand knowledge and experiences that cannot be equaled in a school classroom setting. Sixty students will be accepted (30 for each session).
Contact: Chris Elliott, celliott@ou.edu, or visit http://youth.ou.edu/