A typical electrochemistry experiment at the University of Oregon that consists of copper and aluminum plates, sulfate solutions in beakers, voltmeters and salt bridges in clear plastic tubing is the process of making liquid phase batteries.
Only the students performing it and their lab are anything but typical. They’re youngsters just out of grades six through nine working in a lounge in a dormitory on campus with jars formerly for peanut butter and jelly.
But the classes are real.
The students are part of the 21st annual Summer Enrichment Program, an intensive two-week academic and social program that brings in talented students from around Oregon and as far away as Alaska. Classes, which run from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily with an hour break for lunch, include Introduction to Calculus, Historical and Contemporary Comedy and Advanced Web Design. Also, the students participate in weekend dances, talent shows and nightly rallies.
The first of two sessions sends off its approximately 70 students Saturday. The campers live in the Stafford, Sheldon and Young campus dormitories for the duration of each session and pay $775 in fees.
Because of scheduling conflicts with summer session classes, most of the courses take place in the lounges of these dorms, including the three chemistry and two art classes the program offers.
Ronald Trebon, director of the Summer Session, said classrooms and labs were unavailable at the times SEP requested them, especially between 8 a.m. and noon, Monday through Thursday.
“My number one priority is the regular summer session curriculum,” he said. “We get lots of non-curriculum programs requesting space.”
SEP staff even contacted the chemistry and biology departments directly themselves to inquire as to lab space. Regularly scheduled classes were taking place in at least six of the seven biology teaching labs, and the only chemistry teaching lab otherwise free was crowded with equipment from a renovation elsewhere, equipment that needed to be installed, tested and calibrated.
“I would say our instructors are doing a good job making classes effective; however, real laboratories and art facilities would lend toward the optimum experience,” said Andrew Fisher, coordinator of SEP the past three years.
Marjorie DeBuse, director of SEP, an adjunct professor at the UO College of Education and a TAG coordinator for Eugene’s District Number 4J, said the need for programs like SEP is great.
Oregon has one of the lowest per capita spending rates in the nation for students that are gifted and talented, about $2.60 per TAG student per year. The state focuses teacher attention and resources more on bringing up lower achievers, she said.
“But (TAG students) really don’t make it on their own,” DeBuse said. “They lose their potential; they drop out, become adjudicated youth. And their suicide rate is too high.
“Often times they turn off to school,” she said.
Jade Brooks, 14, a rising 10th grader at South Eugene High School, is back for her third year in SEP. She is taking Musical Theater, Hip Hop Dance and Acting 101, on the one hand, and Epidemiology, Social Policy and Interior Architecture, on the other. She likes what she’s into.
“I feel like the camp and the teachers and the classes are focused toward trying to get the students to ask questions, where as in (regular) school, it’s trying to get the students to answer,” she said.
Nancy Newman, a journalism instructor at Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene, which this year is sending 17 students to SEP, submitted written recommendations for two students this year.
Being on the college campus gets 12 to 16 year-olds thinking about themselves as college students in an atmosphere in which intelligence is valued, Newman said.
“They don’t have to hide how smart they are. Nobody has to dumb down. In regular school, it’s not cool to be smart,” she said.