Fifteen students from lower-income school districts will engage with science and technology this month as they participate in Rogers State University’s first ever ART Academy, a week-long residential camp.
The camp, whose acronym is short for Appreciating Real-World Technology, runs June 16-21 at the RSU Claremore campus and aims to expose Oklahoma high school juniors and seniors to a university environment. Many of the participating students would be the first in their family go to college.
“The program is really about getting them on a college campus, putting them in a production studio, letting them look through the microscope, so they can see what a university education is all about. We want to plant that seed, to show them that this is something they could really do,” said the event’s principal organizer, Abe Marrero, RSU psychology professor and head of the Department of Psychology, Sociology, & Criminal Justice. “We want to show them that anything is possible.”
ART Academy is funded through Gear Up, a U.S. Department of Education program designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in college. The program is free to students.
RSU collaborated with the Northeast Technology Center to produce the camp’s technology-focused curriculum.
Throughout the week, the students will use technology as the professionals do, producing television and radio commercials, examining forensic evidence and programing three-dimensional animation.
“We are focused on showing these students how technology and science education is used every day and that, if they work hard, they can get paid to do some really cool stuff,” said Brook Easton, environmental and spatial technology facilitator at NTC.
Oklahoma High Schools represented by participating students include: Woodward High School, Checotah High School, Catoosa High School, Guymon High School, Caney Valley High School in Ochelata, Tecumseh High School, Davis High School, Okmulgee High School, McCloud High School and Supulpa High School.