After five weeks of classes, students in the Upward Bound summer program at Crowder College are leaving, but another group will be taking their place.
This session had 183 students from 37 area high schools. Some of the students were recent graduates attending classes at Crowder for college credit, but most of them were focused on the math and science program. Next week, this group will head to Denver to visit some museums and the university there, and another group of approximately 125 will arrive for the second session of the college-prep academy.
Christin McGowen, Upward Bound math and science assistant director, said the program directs students towards a college degree.
“Essentially what happens is we simulate the college experience for our students who are in this program,” McGowen said. “They live in the dorms for five weeks and eat in the cafeteria and go to class all day and they’re responsible for getting themselves up every day just like college students.”
Students take four hours of core classes every day: English, math, science and a foreign language. Then they have a research class: three hours of directed learning, often hands-on.
Each research class covers a different topic.
“We had a robotics course where the instructor had all of the students disassemble old VCRs and tape recorders and cell phones and stuff like that and they actually built their robots from scratch using those parts,” McGowen said. “We’ve also had a renewable energies course and they built solar race cars, small ones, and then they also made solar ovens and they actually baked cookies in them.”
Brimming with the concepts of renewable energy, students in Dan Boyt’s renewable energy class brandish miniature blue vials of biodiesel fuel. They voice their approval for alternative energy by calling out, “Crude oil is the devil.”
“We learned more than just ‘crude oil is the devil,’” said Colleen Didden cradling a 10-inch solar car. “Mostly solar.”
Luke Chew knows what his favorite part of the class was – chocolate chip cookies.
“Baking in the ‘bakinator,’” Chew said, pointing to one of the solar ovens they built.
A lifetime wellness class focused on nutrition and physiology, and there was a drafting course focused on engineering and architecture. In the psychology class, they learned operant conditioning and trained hamsters to go through mazes.
“We’ve also had a class called fishmasters,” McGowen said. “That studies the environment of indigenous fish to Southwest Missouri and, of course, they also learned to fish in the process.”
She is proud of the summer staff who work together for the students.
