High school students and teachers from 13 states in the Appalachian Regional Commission region of the Eastern and Southern United States are spending two weeks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, receiving hands-on experience about science.
Martha Hammonds of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, the project manager, said a goal of the two-week session is to encourage students to pursue science careers.
"One of the goals of the program is to inspire the students in particular to consider going on to college," Hammond said.
Hammond says the teachers experience during their two weeks in Oak Ridge is valuable to their efforts in the classroom.
"They need some ideas that they can take back and use with their students," Hammond said. "They want to enrich their content knowledge in areas in which they're interested. They want to go back and share these ideas with their colleagues and try to inspire their students."
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy.