Engineering School to send students into the community

The time of year has come when students -- overwhelmed with the pressure of college life -- wish they could return to elementary school, where the only worries they had involved spelling words and multiplication tables. For students in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, this "youthful" fantasy will soon become a reality. Beginning next fall, a new Engineering School community service project will send interested Engineering freshmen to West Philadelphia elementary schools to teach fourth graders how to use the Internet, according to the Engineering School's Assistant Director of Student Affairs Katherine Becht. The initiative has two components -- a "Welcome to the Net" curriculum that will familiarize teachers with the Internet, and a collaborative process with the elementary school students that will teach them how to use the World Wide Web through projects like the development of a classroom Web page. The volunteers' efforts will help the students by giving them skills that are essential for use in today's technologically based world, Becht said. "Education is not just about books and blackboards anymore," she explained. "It is about technology as well." Working on the project will benefit Engineering freshmen as well, Becht said. Since most first-year courses are based in the College of Arts and Sciences, freshmen don't have much interaction with other Engineering students. Community service is a "codified way to identify with their classmates," she noted. Becht and a group of Engineering student representatives from the Engineering Peer Advisory Council came up with the idea after meeting with Cory Bowman, assistant director of Penn programming for public service. According to Bowman, many local elementary schools have installed computer labs in recent years, but a lack of technical support and experience has prevented them from taking advantage of the resource. Penn volunteers will provide both the education and technical support needed. EPAC directors and peer advisors will pilot the program next semester to "work the bugs out." And the project will be expanded next fall to include incoming freshmen. Assuming success, each fall a new class of freshmen will "adopt" a fourth grade class, Becht added. Engineering junior Alyssa Abo, EPAC's associate director of Bioengineering, is one of the students signed up to participate in next semester's pilot program. "I think the program is a wonderful idea because it will give Engineering students an opportunity to do community service which relates to science and technology," Abo said. "I believe it will really take off.