Discover science

Thank you for your March 5 article highlighting the benefits to gifted high school students of summer enrichment programs in science and math [“The Sky’s No Limit,” by Shawn Hubler]. Your readers should also be aware of one of the oldest and most prestigious of these programs, the Summer Science Program (SSP), held annually in Ojai since 1959.

This six-week immersion in astronomy, calculus, physics and programming has inspired loyalty from its alumni that would be the envy of most four-year colleges, to the extent that alumni actually assumed operational and financial responsibility for the entire program in 1999. In 2003 we expanded SSP to a second campus in New Mexico. [More information can be found at www.summerscience.org.]

Richard D. Bowdon

Executive Director,

Summer Science Program

Cary, N.C.

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Shawn Hubler’s article on science camps certainly identified the common and likely the most popular space and cosmic science-based camps, many of which are geared to gifted students. But it never touched on the basics of science -- science education that electrifies children of all ages and programs that help kids learn that science is more than just reaching (literally) for the stars.

Such programs are offered by the Yosemite National Institutes, which, through its inquiry-based programs, teaches nearly 30,000 kids a year that science is not only a process but fun and is in their own backyard. This award-winning organization has been doing this for 30 years and thousands of kids from Southern California have benefited and gone on to become scientists in many areas apart from space exploration. [More information is available at www.yni.org.]

Paul Culberg

Agoura

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In addition to the camps mentioned in the article, the organization I belong to, the American Assn. of University Women, sponsors “Tech Trek,” a math-science camp designed to develop interest, excitement and confidence in young women who will enter eighth grade in the fall. It features hands-on activities in math, science and related fields, in instructional and recreational facilities located on a university campus. [More information can be found at

www.aauwca online.org/?Page=42.]

Carol Tarbell

Brea