"A summer program gives a chance for high school students to see what it's about to see that older students, faculty and coaches are excited about exciting things, and are happy to have them involved," Balkom said.
The Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth program attracts Hanover High student volunteers and interns to participate in hosting students from under-resourced schools at Dartmouth. Last summer, three high school interns worked with SEAD to help the College's student leaders run the program and act as peer support for the SEAD Scholars, Michael Gordon '12, student director of SEAD, said.
Bethlehem Foster, a Hanover High senior, served as a SEAD intern last summer and stayed with SEAD Scholars in campus housing.
"These kids needed so much attention and so much help," Foster said. "Even though they are so strong in their schools, they didn't know that people cared about them. They didn't know what they are going to do with their lives. This was a place where they figured out what they're going to do."
Dartmouth's Special Olympics Program offers another venue for Hanover High students to volunteer at Dartmouth. The Hanover High and Lebanon High School girls' hockey teams attend Special Olympics events and cheer on the teams, Kate Petcosky, volunteer coordinator for Dartmouth's Special Olympics said.
"It always looks like they're having a good time," Petcosky said. "I think it's nice that they're able to give back."
Another academic program offered at Dartmouth is the Summer Robotics Program, founded by Suzanne Thompson in 2004. The robotics program was started as an outreach program intended to involve local students in technology at an early age. The camp has four sections of middle and high school students who learn to navigate and program mobile robots using sensors, Balkcom, who teaches a session of the camp, said.
"We want to get students excited about technology early," Balkcom said. "We are a different type of opportunity to get students interacting with exciting Dartmouth undergraduate mentors primarily to see what students here are doing in the computer science department and elsewhere."
When the computer science department took over the robotics camp in 2010, the Dartmouth Institute for Security, Technology and Society became interested in offering a summer security program for high school students, Thompson said.
The 2011 ISTS Summer Program focused on the Trustworthy Information System for Health Care and challenged students to complete projects related to secure information technology systems, lead instructor for ISTS Gabriel Weaver GR '12 said.
The U.S. Department of Defense's Information Assurance Scholarship Program provided funding for the camp so students can participate without cost, Thomas Candon, associate director of ISTS, said.
"There is a great need for America's colleges and universities to turn out more computer scientists, engineering and math majors interested in following a career path to computer security," he said. "It is even more important that students in grades K-12 are given opportunities to gain insight into the ever-growing and ever-evolving field."
Aside from established summer programs, Hanover High students have also pursued individual opportunities at Dartmouth. Hanover High alumnus Axel Hanson worked as a research intern with computer science professor Sergey Bratus on computer and network security projects.
"Sergey was as good a mentor as I've ever had and I could ever have," Hansen said. "His technique is to explain things, show things and have people try it out to understand."
