Background: In response to the effort to increase minority enrollment in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, STEM summer bridge programs were created to help minorities with the transition from high school to college with the long-term goal of increasing the diversity of professionals in STEM. The goal of this…

Preschool aged children's social and emotional adjustment impacts their behavior across settings. Providing high-quality early intervention services that enhance social and emotional skills can help prepare children for formal schooling and improve social and behavioral outcomes. The summer prior to Kindergarten presents a unique opportunity for…

This article describes the STEM Entrepreneurship Academy, a week-long summer camp that exposes students from the Black Belt region of Alabama to a college campus and opportunities in the STEM disciplines. A unique feature of this program is the entrepreneurial focus on STEM. Students interact with university faculty, staff, and students while…

In this study, we explore middle-class parental involvement in summer activities of four elementary students. Many researchers discuss summer programs initiated by institutions, but fail to explain how parents' availability, experiences, and related criteria affect student summer activities. From our interviews, observations, and artifacts, we…

Motivation to learn science plays an important role in the persistence, achievement, and career aspirations of students studying science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Several studies have focused on how supplemental summer programmes build science motivation in undergraduate STEM students, but few studies have focused on how such…

Retention and graduation rates for engineering disciplines are significantly lower than desired, and research literature offers many possible causes. Engineering learning communities provide the opportunity to study relationships among specific causes and to develop and evaluate activities designed to lessen their impact. This paper details an…

Summer Enrichment Workshop (SEW) is a clinical experience in the teacher preservice training program for gifted and talented (GT) master's degree interns at the University of Alabama. This mixed design study investigated the effects of the SEW clinical experience on interns' preparation to teach. Quantitative analysis demonstrated a statistically…

In an effort to reduce the engineering student withdrawal rate due to mathematics, The University of Alabama developed a unique, informal, interactive, and interdisciplinary five-week summer residence program called the Engineering Math Advancement Program (E-MAP). The program aims to increase retention by preparing students to be successful in…

Followup sessions were conducted for Alabama teachers who completed training in the "Exploring Space: The Classroom Connection" science teaching program in summer 1997. The effectiveness of these sessions was evaluated for 71 teachers. This analysis also allowed for a comparison of several basic concepts about science of the 1996 Alabama…

Research was conducted at Camp ASCCA (Alabama's Special Camp for Children and Adults) to investigate the effects of an 11-week outdoor residential camp experience with handicapped campers on their self-esteem, attitude toward handicapped individuals, and locus of control scores of first year counselors with no previous experience. Self-esteem was…