Sixty eighth-grade students from Des Moines and Fort Dodge schools are spending the week at Iowa State to develop math and language arts skills as a preparatory experience for college.

Outer space is the theme of this year’s Early Outreach Program at ISU. The program includes 15 hours of class, guest speakers, enrichment activities and recreational activities, including a trip to Adventureland in Des Moines on Friday.

Jane Agyeman of Educational Talent Search (ETS) said ETS is a federally funded program that provides enrichment activities for low-income and first generation college-bound students.

“We have a federal grant that allows us to identify low-income and first generation students and work with them and give them all the information they need in order to get them ready to go to college,” Agyeman said.

Educational Talent Search collaborated with the Science Bound program of the Institute For Physical Research and Technology for the project. Science Bound is a program dedicated to encouraging math and science skills for minority students in Des Moines schools.

Kathy Trahanovsky, director of the Science Bound program, said the Early Outreach Program at ISU fulfills a need to provide college experiences to pre-college students.

“We hope we are also minimizing the mental and preparatory barriers often associated with the college experience,” Trahanovsky said.

Peter Sawer, physics laboratory assistant, organized a hands-on demonstration of some basic physics principles for the group. Sawer’s presentation demonstrated the principles behind fiber optics, rocket propulsion, transformers (common devices used in most household electrical products) and atmospheric pressure.

The demonstrations illustrated the importance of these principles in industry and in laboratory science. “I want to show that the importance of the demonstration is to confirm the principle,” Sawer said.

Students participated in the demonstrations and were allowed to try out the equipment themselves after the presentation. They learned how physics can explain optical illusions and how it applies to their everyday lives.

The goal of the program is to enrich the students’ math and language skills. The classes are structured to reflect this goal. In addition, four hours of computer time are reserved for the students at one of the ISU computer labs.

“We get on the Internet and look at the planets,” said Jessica Middleton, a participant from Fort Dodge. Middleton said she is college bound and hopes to be either a marine biologist or an oceanographer.

The Early Outreach Program at ISU is sponsored by the Department of Residence, the College Bound program of the Office of Minority Student Affairs, Educational Talent Search and the Institute for Physical Research and Technology Science Bound program.