Local High School Students Become Scientists-in-Training

A lively group of New Haven teenagers is learning how to do serious science at Yale this month, through the SCHOLAR (Science Collaborative Hands-On Learning and Research) program, an intensive residential summer academy.

SCHOLAR exposes 40–50 students from New Haven’s Hill Regional Career High School to an environment that emphasizes discovery, critical thinking and problem solving. Most students admitted to the program attend for three successive summers, beginning after their freshman year. They live on campus during the week and study in Yale’s libraries and laboratories.

In the fall, SCHOLAR students carry the lessons of their summer program back to Career High School, creating an informal community of like-minded students with focused academic aspirations and the shared experience of living and learning together at Yale.

Hill Regional Career High School and Yale’s schools of Medicine and Nursing entered into an educational partnership in 1996, when the university pledged to make its resources available to the faculty and students of the school. In the years since, faculty members from the high school and the university have worked together to revise science courses, create new academic offerings and internships and design and implement the summer academy known as SCHOLAR.

Participating high school sophomores are introduced to genetics and developmental cell biology. Juniors, many of whom are at Yale for their second summer, study chemistry. Seniors fine-tune their laboratory skills in the morning and work on college applications in the afternoon. All students work in small groups with instructors from both Yale and the public school system.

Reporters are invited to visit the SCHOLAR program, interview students and teachers and learn more about this enrichment program and the difference it makes to all those involved.

SCHOLAR is one of several summer programs that Yale offers to New Haven children. Every year, about 600 youngsters come on campus during the summer for academic enrichment and recreation, and most of these programs are free of charge, coordinated through the Office of New Haven and State Affairs at Yale.