Editors: Reporters and photographers are welcome to attend any of the sessions on June 5. The 10:30 a.m. physics presentation will feature explosions and other visual effects. The tour of Henderson Museum beginning at 12:40 p.m. will feature a live owl and an educational talk.
More than 300 seventh graders from middle schools throughout Colorado will get a glimpse of campus life and a pitch to go to college at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ at Boulder on Tuesday, June 5, as part of the state's GEAR-UP initiative to get low-income youths into college.
GEAR-UP, or Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, is a state-run, federally funded initiative designed to encourage schools, colleges and universities to help students stay in school and take college-prep courses in middle school and high school to prepare them for college.
The students will arrive at CU-Boulder at 9:30 a.m. June 5 at the Duane Physics Building, room G1B30, where they will be welcomed by Elease Robbins, dean of students. CU football player Marcus Houston will lead off the program with a talk titled "College is Possible," and a representative of the admissions office will discuss "Getting Into College."
At 10:30 a.m. Professor Michael Dubson of the physics department will present his CU Wizards program titled "Boom! The Physics of Sound and Air Pressure," which will be followed by a barbecue at 11:40 a.m. in the Balch plaza on the west side of Folsom Stadium.
Following lunch, the students will split into groups for tours of several parts of the CU-Boulder campus including Fiske Planetarium, the Henderson Museum and a birds of prey show, the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory at the engineering college, the recreation center and Folsom Stadium. The students will leave campus by bus at 1:45 p.m.
The Colorado Commission on Higher Education was awarded the multi-year federal grant for GEAR-UP in 1999 to promote higher education to low-income families in Colorado, in partnership with Gov. Bill Owens' office and nine of the state's middle schools.
As part of the program, the CCHE will track students participating in GEAR-UP from seventh grade through 12th grade and will award scholarships to any participating student who successfully completes GEAR-UP and enrolls in a Colorado college or university. The students must maintain a minimum 2.0 grade-point average.
The scholarships cover four years of tuition at any institution of higher education in Colorado.
GEAR-UP has more than 1,500 seventh-grade participants from nine middle schools and seven colleges and universities. Participating middle schools include Denver's Gove Middle School, Ignacio Middle School, Ft. Lupton Middle School, La Jara's Centauri Middle School, Aurora's West Middle School, Delta Middle School, Lamar Middle School, Dolores Middle School and Pueblo's Risley Middle School.
The GEAR-UP program at CU-Boulder is being coordinated by CU-Boulder's Office of Community Affairs, which serves as a liaison between the campus's outreach programs and local and statewide communities. For more information on community affairs at CU-Boulder go to .