In a small basement office on Broad Street, students aren't just learning what makes antibiotics kill bacteria, they're building computer models that show exactly how antibiotics react chemically in the body.
This wood-paneled room is not a school for fledgling pharmacists, however, but for scientists. Or at least for students who might want to explore math and science after school and as possible careers.
The Shodor Education Foundation, 923 Broad St., is offering several weeklong camps this summer. Students will get to work hands-on with scientists, using computer modeling to study everything from how weather forecasters predict a storm's path to how flu viruses spread through a school to how police examine physical evidence to solve crimes.
Students don't have to know anything about computers to enroll. In fact, part of Shodor's mission is reaching out to kids who might not normally get involved in math and science - girls, minority students including Latinos, kids with disabilities - says Bob Gotwals Jr., a computational science educator.
The summer camps - called Project SUCCEED: Stimulating Understanding of Computational science through Collaboration, Exploration, Experiment, and Discovery - has been funded by a $180,000 grant from Burroughs Wellcome. Each of the 10 sessions costs $100 or $200, but no student will be turned away for financial reasons.
Shodor also offers free year-round after-school mentoring, where middle and high school students can come and learn to make Web pages and work with scientists doing contract work for the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense and other federal agencies. Students work at their own pace with the help of a mentor, often another student.
Misael Cornejo, a 10th-grader at Southern High School, has been visiting Shodor one afternoon a week to learn HTML, the language of Web pages.
"I like it," the 15-year-old said. "If I feel comfortable working on my own, they leave me, and if I have some questions they stay with me and explain."
Cornejo, whose family moved to Durham from Mexico three years ago, says some of his classmates shun science because of language problems, not because they're not interested.
"Some like science and computers, but not everybody has the same opportunity because we don't speak a lot of English." The lack of Hispanic students in the sciences is a national problem. Just down the street from Shodor at the N.C. School of Science & Mathematics, for example, the student body was 33 percent minority last year, but only 2 percent Hispanic.
Amos Barreto, an electrical engineer by trade, helps bridge the gap. The Venezuelan native can speak with Hispanic youngsters in their native language. And, as a father, he also knows a little about motivating others.
"When you have five kids you realize the only tools you have to make them do things is love and motivation," Barreto said. "We have a large population that doesn't know how to support their kids [in school]. We can be a bridge.
"Every time that a student comes here to take a course, they learn they can have fun with science and math, they can play with science and math, and they go back to school with a different attitude."
For more information about Shodor's summer programs, contact the Foundation at 286-1911, or by email to [email protected], or on the Web at www.shodor.org
c. Durham Herald Company, Inc.