Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

February 28, 2008 issue

ASU Begins After-School Program for Home-schooled, Minority Students

Appalachian State University is beginning a new free after-school science enrichment program this fall for High Country home school students and minority students from Hickory.

The program, called AppalSEED Academy, is a yearlong science enrichment program targeting home-schooled students in northwestern North Carolina and minority and low-income students from Hickory High School. It is funded by a $179,000 grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The grant will run for three years with the option to renew for another three years.

AppalSEED stands for Appalachian Student Experience-based Education.

Chishimba Nathan Mowa, an assistant professor in Appalachian’s Department of Biology and the program’s director, said the initiative is much needed. “These two groups of students share one thing: limited access to technology and scientific expertise,” he said.

Mowa was convinced of the need to provide this kind of outreach, particularly to students who are home schooled, when a student he advises told him of her lack of experience with common laboratory equipment.

“When the student’s chemistry professor asked the class to turn on the Bunsen burners in the lab, she didn’t know what they were,” Mowa said. “I’m concerned that once an average home-schooled student reaches a certain grade, which is usually high school, the parents’ science knowledge base is limited. If the parents have the knowledge base, they don’t have the expensive equipment needed for science studies.”

At Appalachian, students in AppalSEED Academy will have access to various expensive equipment, as well as experts in the sciences.

“If this problem of access isn’t solved and as the home school student population continues to grow, we shall have a group that is technically isolated, similar to the digital divide, due to a lack of access to this technology,” Mowa said.

A total of 20 students, 10 who are home schooled and 10 from Hickory, will be selected to participate in the program. A new group will be admitted to the academy each year.

Students selected to the academy will participate in team building activities, and work with professors, including participation in research projects, in each of four areas: chemistry, eco-toxicology, microscopy and biomedical science. They will meet on Thursdays from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. from September through April on the Appalachian campus. Students selected from the Hickory area will receive transportation to and from Appalachian.

Students completing the academy may be selected to attend a summer science program supported by the Merck Institute for Science Education.

Participating faculty are Nicole Bennett from the Department of Chemistry, Guichuan Hou from the university’s microscopy facility, Shea Tuberty from the Department of Biology, and Mowa.

For more information about the program, click to www.appalseed.appstate.edu. The deadline for applications is March 7.