Above: A Great Smoky Mountains National Park ranger discusses the effects of ozone on vegetation with local middle school students at Purchase Knob in Haywood County.

Ninety-one rising middle school students from Macon, Swain, Haywood and Jackson counties and from the Qualla Boundary of the Cherokee Indians participated in a two-week Pre-College Program at Western Carolina University designed to develop interests in science- and mathematics-based fields of higher education.

“The College of Education and Allied Professions is very excited to provide the Pre-College Program,” said Erin McManus, coordinator of the program at Western. “We feel strongly that this program benefits local students, and it represents the next step of our expanding work with the public school systems in the critical areas of science and mathematics.”

The program, with classes centered on themes of “The World Around Us” and “Epidemiology,” encompassed technology, science, mathematics and communications courses. Over the course of the program, students also participated in hands-on activities, including building LEGO robots, working on the water quality of Cullowhee Creek and studying the effects of pollution on various species.

While at Purchase Knob in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Thursday, June 28, students talked about lichens and examined ozone-damaged plants.

Cody Keener, a rising eighth-grader at Macon Middle School, said the program gave him information about his career path. “I’ve known what I wanted to be for about six years now—a biomedical chemist to cure cancer and paralysis—but the program helped me know how to get to that point,” Keener said.

Cherokee Middle School eighth-grader Letitia Driver said, “I want to be a veterinarian and help animals. Career Day helped me find schools I can go to in order to be a vet.”

Another student, Dean Triplett, who is a rising seventh-grader at Swain Middle School, said the results of a career test he took during the program helped him make a decision. Triplett now aspires to work for NASA as a computer aerospace engineer.

“Camp has helped me decide what I want to be,” said Karen Palacios, a rising seventh-grader at Waynesville Middle School. “I want to go to veterinary school, but if not that, then I’ll try to be a detective.”

A rising sixth-grader at Cullowhee Valley, Daniel Massingale, said he learned about new jobs in the field of technology. “I already knew I wanted to be a technician, but some of the things the technologist said gave me more information about the job,” Massingale said. “I’ve had a lot of fun at camp, and I’m glad I applied for it.”

North Carolina pre-college programs have been highly successful in their 20-year history, with 97 percent of their high school graduates enrolling in colleges and universities; 80 percent majoring in mathematics, science or related fields; and 85 percent enrolling in North Carolina institutions of higher education, said McManus.

Western’s Pre-College Program currently serves 95 students in grades six through eight, and over time will expand to include sixth- through 12th-grade students.

For more information about Western’s Pre-College Program, contact McManus at (828) 227-2771 or at emcmanus@email.wcu.edu.