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48284-SE
ACS Project SEED Summer Experiences for Economically Disadvantaged High School Students
Cecilia Hernandez, American Chemical Society
Project SEED is the American Chemical Society’s program for high school students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who have an interest in science. The Project SEED Summer program helps these students at a critical point in their educational career. SEED students worked under the supervision of research scientists on projects that exposed them to the many disciplines of the chemical sciences. The Project SEED Summer II program allows successful Summer I students to continue their research project for a second year. The program has had a significant impact on the lives of nearly 9,000 students during the past 40 years. Evaluations show that Project SEED continues to be successful in stimulating students’ interest in science. The majority of SEED students go on to earn college degrees.
Project SEED celebrated its 40th anniversary at the 236th ACS Fall National Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. At this celebration, ACS recognized and honored the contribution of more than 400 outstanding coordinators and mentors who dedicated themselves to the program and the Project SEED sponsors and contributors who gave generously throughout the 40 years of the program. Special recognition was given to donors who have provided contributions of $50,000 or more. As part of the presidential events in Philadelphia, Project SEED cosponsored a technical session, which described several successful research projects where students successfully participated alongside their mentors; an anniversary symposium, “Crossing Generations and Energizing Minds”, where former SEED students shared their stories and explained how the program experience changed their lives and motivated them to pursue studies in science and discussed the value of the mentor-student relationship. Mentors and coordinators talked about the rewarding nature of the program and how Project SEED plays an integral part of the lives of the students, exposing them to the scientific process. ACS president, Bruce Bursten, concluded the celebration with his closing remarks and stressed that Project SEED represents an ongoing investment by ACS and its members in ensuring the vitality of the chemical enterprise in the future. At Sci-Mix poster session, over 100 students from this summer’s Project SEED program presented their summer research. In 2008, the program allowed 309 students to participate in the Summer I program and 74 students in the Summer II program at academic, industrial, and governmental research laboratories nationwide. Of these 383 students, 64 were supported by the ACS Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) at the following institutions.
ACS PRF Participating Institutions
California State University, Los Angeles
Georgetown University, DC
Carnegie Inst. of Washington, DC
Walter Reed Army Inst. of Research, DC
Drake University, IA
Illinois State University, IL
Mount Holyoke College, MA
ARS-USDA-Fruit Laboratory, MD
Food and Drug Administration, MD
Smithsonian Environmental Research Ctr., MD
Wayne State University, MI
University of North Carolina-Charlotte, NC
Keene State College, NH
Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ
New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJ
Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
Brooklyn College, NY
Hamilton College, NY
Polytechnic University, NY
St. John’s University, NY
The City College of New York, NY
University of Rochester, NY
Duquesne University, PA
The University of Memphis, TN
University of Texas at Austin, TX
George Mason University, VA
University of Vermont, VT
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