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What Interests High-School Students?
Jim Willis asks: "Our IT Division happens to be populated with some civic-minded people who are interested in making time available for local high-school students interested in science and technology. Question is, we're not sure the best way to do it. We're mulling around the idea of sponsoring a robotics competition or some sort of programming fair/competition. Unfortunately, we've been out of high-school long enough to not know what excites students about technology. Slashdot readers (esp. those of you in high-school): Where should we focus our attention and donate/volunteer our time?"
Involve one of the three and you're ok. Two and you're set.
How to make their Sims peeps stop pissing themselves?
Better/faster ways to find more porn
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
As I recall... I was a walking hormone.
Get some activities with prizes like free mp3 players and such.
They like video games, a lot. If you can include games in it in any way, they'll be all over it.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Duh.
Providing your time [and more likely, some sort of facilities support and supervision] is more than enough. The best thing you could probably do is simply provide the environment for them to be creative and learn.
American kids are already very interested in the metric system. Perhaps some sort of competition to see who can measure out a gram blindfolded?
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
This is a new high for /. me thinks, to say nothing of the value of having knowledgeable (or atleast technologically aware) geeks in Government offices.
Hope the assumption here isn't that /. is full of highschoolers though (not to bilittle them in any way whatsoever).
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
What interests high school students?
Breasts.
You're forgetting.
/.
This is
And you're posting saying that people WON'T be interested in something like a robotics competition? I know at my high school at least (which I'm currently attending), given the funds the entire tech lab "poplulation" would LOVE a robotics contest. Note that tech lab is roughly 40 students per period, 8 periods a day, per 2 teachers. Do the math yourself, just note that a grand MANY students would love the idea. "High technology" in the average US public school would be welcomed open-armed, imho.
I'm in High School, and am currently enrolled in: Multimedia III, which is a class where you do a bunch of crap with computers in. Such as: Reason, Cinema 4D, Flash MX, etc. :D I love it, as do many others. But that suggestion about Car Audio... Cha-ching. :)
END
High school nerds are only concerned with one thing: using computers to get the girl . Just make sure you put the contacts on the Kelly LeBrock doll, not the rocket.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Graphics I would guess. (I'm three years out of high-school), especially if related to video games. Of course, lining up a bunch of Alienwares and having a huge lan-party is probably not what you have in mind, but maybe showing some examples of simple 3d animations, or guest speakers who work with making video games.
CowsAnonymous: We're here to help moo.
Since everybody else in this thread seems to be focusing on the silly (though, sadly, accurate) let me suggest that you perhaps get involved with a home-school group or a *worthwhile* private school. You're much more likely to get the sincerely interested kids. You could also have interested public school kids come out. Apparently, that's now allowed, though I don't have all the legal details.
Try contacting your local schools and ask them what they're looking for. You might find that they have programs set up already and that there are rules you'll need to follow to participate.
Ignore the cynics posting here, you'll find plenty of kids interested in science and projects. Play top your strengths though, don't get involved in stuff that doesn;t relate to what you do or know.
You might consider something simple like a lecture on networking, followed by having them help set up a lan.
I am a high school student, so I beliewe I am qualified to answer you.
First, be forwarned. I don't mean to sond cynical, but there is not a whole lot that has to do with science and technology that would excite most students. Even if it does, a lot of people are too scared of being called a "nerd" or a "geek" and thereby having their social status for the rest of the four years ruined to show that excitement.
There are, however, some. I don't think that a robotics competition is a good idea, however. I don't know about most schools, but at mine there are not a lot of people interested in robotics. Besides, it would take a lot of work, and a lot of the most brilliant people are inherently lazy.
I think the programming fair was a great idea, however. Every time I write a program to do the simplest thing on my TI-84+ graphing calculator (such as convert celsius to fahrenheit for instance) people gape at me with awe and amazement and ask, how did you DO that? This includes jocks, socialites, and various other groups of people who would normally not be caught dead showing an interest in the "nerdy" fields of computers or technology.
If you put on a programming fair, you are not going to be able to teach anyone computer programming in a day, but you will spark their interest. Give away a few CDs with C tutorials on them or something, and maybe, just maybe, a few kids will try them out.
Also, expect the bit-head population to turn out in force at your fair. You can even put some of them to good use, having them help the newbies who have no idea what's going on.
In conclusion, programming fair=good, robotics competition=bad.
Le français vous intéresse?
Being a highschool student involved with science\tech I would suggest becoming a mentor for a FIRST Robotics team in your area. It's a great way to help the kids, and the community in general. the website:http://www.usfirst.org/
I'm 21, so I haven't been out of high school too terribly long. The world wide web seems to appeal to just about everyone so I would suggest a web development contest of some sort -- preferrably data-driven sites. None of this MS FrontPage crap.
I wish my school had held some sort of PHP competition. Will it attract everyone? Certainly not, but I doubt you would want to. A great many high school students ARE just focused on scoring, rims and car stereos.
Are you an open source warrior?
At least when I went to high school hacking was perceived as cool somehow. Even kids that know nothing about computers may be attracted to learning how people hack into systems without authorization. Tell them about tiger teams. Talk about breaking crypto. Explain how hacking isn't just limited to breaking into other peoples computers. I was the kinda kid that was always in saturday school and detention. I would never have been attracted to computers unless I knew that I could do "fun" stuff with them.
For added effect wear a mohawk.
You're in high school, and you can actually write? I mean, without abbreviations or anything? How did you DO that? Really! That's quite an impressive writing piece for something you just whipped up for slashdot. You've restored my faith in the school system.
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
this is just false. not to mention kinda mean, and very unhelpful.
okay, there's lots of kids for whom it's true, but there's way more for whom it's not. there's an awful lot of kids in american schools who are actually interested in learning. science isn't the "thing" for all of them, but for many it is. i've worked with high school kids from various schools and backgrounds, and this holds (to varying degrees) across all of them. and the idea that all bright kids - or, more importantly, all kids interested in actually learning - are going to be anti-social nerds getting beat up in the back of the room is somewhere between stereotypically inaccurate and grossly outdated, likely based in personal historical issues.
to the poster: i don't really know what specifically to suggest you try, but please ignore the parent here. give your stuff a shot; you're likely to be pleasantly surprised by the response you get.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
I'm a senior in High School in an affluent suburb of NYC. If I were to try to engage a large number of other high schoolers like mysel, I would gear it towards creativity/design. Most of my friends are fanatics for pirating software: all of them have Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, Encore, and Audition, Fruity Loops, and Maya. However, few of us have a damn clue how to use any of em. If you could find a way give instruction in a few of these, a lot of students would be very interested.
My experience over the years trying to volunteer my IT and Network Security expertise to the local school system has been very disappointing. Most recently our Board of Ed decided every kid in the high school should have a laptop. Many of us felt strongly that the decision was made without the proper research and thought. They had visited one single school and decided to adopt that school's plan verbatim.
The results have been poor, the kids have had a field day loading porn and games onto the computers. The school has accused many of the kids of using the laptops to cheat. They have had to hire three full time employees to fix the laptop's OS (Yup you guessed it, Windoze). They never looked at any other operating system, and they blew off any suggestion of evaluating Open Office, though they could not tell us why they absolutely needed Microsoft Office. When I suggested desktops instead of laptops so that the image could be reloaded nightly as other schools do, I was rebuffed. They actually implied that I didn't want the kids to have computers. They assumed that every kid would have a printer that worked with the laptop (A Sony model that doesn't show up on the Sony site or Google.) Tests have had to be postponed because teacher's computer's have failed, imagine they don't have back up machines for the teachers. Once they realized that they would have to provide printers for at least some of the kids they scrambled to get a printer on the network, no luck so far. The laptops sound is software controlled so the first 15 minutes of each class is spent listening to 20 or so laptops booting up. I could go on but I think you get the point.
In short it has been one disaster after another. Tonight my wife and I will be attending yet another Board of Ed meeting. I will be announcing the formation of a committee to elect a competent Board of Ed. Maybe then you kind folks can come here and help us clean up the mess.
War games work basically as such:
Take 2 computers with the same operating system (Linux is preferrable due to the wide range of coding tools available), both teams are allotted time to secure their computers however they see fit (short of changing the operating system). First team to break the other's security is the victor.
If this doesn't seem appealing, just be creative. Think of something that you would find entertaining and they will more than likely agree, high school students who are interested in math/science are (in my experience) fairly mature. Don't try to think on their level, often you'll find they're thinking on yours.
Physics makes the world go 'round.
Just get them to try to design a chamber with the fastest plant growing potential. I guarantee you that they will be interested.
;-)
To grow various types of plants, of course. Herbs for their kitchens, I'm sure.
Stiny! Get me a danish!
To keep the boys interested, have the foxiest female IT employee do the talking.
about three comments that made it above a rating of "2". And one was rated "funny"...
Does this mean we have no good ideas on what high school kids are interested in or is it that high school kids are not interested in anything that would be suitable for a school environment?
Just teaching them some critical thinking skills and scientific method to make them less credulous and more logical would be useful in their collective futures.
I recently read Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins and realized that *I* was a bit rusty in my critical thinking and statistical ability.
Humans love coincidence and try to recognize patterns in chaos. I think a "fun" logic course could have a lot of cool examples and make them a little less herd-like.
The first thing you need to do is focus your target audience a bit more.
Want the real hardcore, shy away from the sun geeks?
Go for the programming contest, and they will come. The audience is going to be fairly small however.
Want a bit larger geek crowd?
Go with robotics, there are more science and tech topics involved so you will get a bigger crowd. If you feel like giving up several months of your life, mentor a local FIRST team. The kids will appreciate it. You can even get a taste for it first by helping out at a local competition.
Want to do something that will interest every teenager with a passing knowledge of computers?
Do something with HTML and some basic web design. Emphasize ways to pretty up their Xangas and LiveJournals.
Looking for more science than tech?
Sponsor a science fair. Offer prizes, maybe pose a problem and have the entries focus on a solution.
As a university junior, I remember high school (most of it, anyway) very well. My school had a job-shadowing program. First, they would get students to pick a broad field (e.g. petroleum industry, government, journalism). Then, they would link up interested students with companies or professionals in those areas. The lucky student would skip school for a day and spend it with his shiny new mentor.
Frankly, most of the options open to us were lame. I ended up sorting papers in a county clerk's office for seven hours. If you were willing to do such a thing and could actually show the participants something nifty, it might help a few decide on IT. It's important, though, that the program last more than a day. One day is not enough for anything interesting to take place. This might also be an excellent opportunity to latch onto some young talent; grab yourself some summer interns.
By the time I got to university, I didn't have a clue as to how a full-fledged IT shop was run. Last year, I landed the job of systems administrator for the Math & Computer Science department. Learning everything from scratch has been an adventure. Some hands-on experience would have been useful for helping me find something I love earlier.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Maybe "off the wall" projects might be like the following:
- Create a machine to make waffles automatically, without human intervention
- Create a system to predict a person's shoe size using seemingly unrelated measurements, such as head circumfrence, hand size, etc.
- Create a machine to automatically spread a pile of dirt evenly about a room (the opposite of what a Roomba does).
The ultimate point is to get them thinking outside the box. Employers can find lots of people who can tinker some and play with existing toys. Developing people who can take a rough concept and run with it to create a new way of looking at things is gold. That's the kind of talent that created this Internet thingy...Wait. Let me get this straight:That just doesn't add up. I mean, when's the last time you saw a tv show about battling programmers?
I am a third year Computer Science student, and one of the coordinators for http://wcs.csc.uvic.ca/ , the Women in Computer Science Initiative at my university.
One of the biggest challenges is, as the parent poster says, overcoming the stereotypes surrounding Computer Science/Engineering/Math/Science. The other big challenge, IMO, is answering the "Why?" question--as in "Why should I care about CSC/Engineering/etc.?".
To encourage girls to enter the sciences, the best way is to show them how it applies to their lives on a day-to-day basis. This approach will like work with boys, too.
I recommend reading "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing" by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher (or at least skimming it) for an idea of the subtle ways that women are discouraged from taking math and science. Many people, including educators, are unaware how much impact even the slightest discouragement has on girls.
Of course, there are the obvious things: make sure that none of the material can be possibly viewed as sexist, check to make sure that girls can relate to the examples, and actively encourage them to participate. Studies have shown that not only are girls more sensitive to subtle discouragement, they are also more sensitive than boys to a lack of encouragement. Again, the book I mentioned above has a much better overview of all these points, and there is lots of material on the Internet regarding women in CSC/Engineering/the Sciences.
Lastly, from our experiences with high school presentations, you may want to think about involving younger (middle school age) children, if appropriate, as they are often less entrenched in the stereotypes and hence, more open to new experiences.
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience--and a lot of fun. In 2004 the competition will reach more than 20,000 students on over 900 teams in 27 competitions.
Yes, you will spend 6 weeks out of the year without sleep, spending all night in the shop getting the robot ready, but it's a blast!
For more information, see http://www.usfirst.org
I'm a professional geek, and it's how I got in computers in the first place. "How do these video games work?" "Well, there's this thing inside called a computer..." And the rest was history.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I am currently a high school senior, and I agree that there is a big gap between the people who like to fiddle around with their computers, and those who get confused when they are installing a program in Windows. In my opinion, most people who are of the first group, dont really care if they are called geeks, actually we are quite proud of it (to some extent). But if you want to reel in the other group, you need: -flashy lights -hip music -"educators" that can relate to the kids -free stuff if you follow those basic guidelines, almost anything that you do will be a success. But you should stick to subject pertaining to pop-culture references, like the fighting robots, for example. Hope that helps
Mess with the Best, Die Like the Rest
Knock on your next door neighbors door. Tell them what you are planning on doing and that you need sugestions. Ask them if you can ask their teenage son/daughter and use their sugestions. Repeat with any and all neighbors you know of with highschool kids.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I resent this. I'm a teacher. School board members are not educators. They have more to do with local government, each other, and whatever other social networks exist in their school system than they have to do with kids. These inefficiencies you describe have really nothing to do with education since those people in some other setting would behave the same way.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
High school students are interested in each other. You'll notice that having a nice phone and sending little text messages is cool. It's not the phone that's cool.
If there's some technology that allows them to monitor who's going out with whom every day you'll see kids snap it up.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
- Build towers or bridges out of balsawood that then compete in a wieghtbaring competition
- Bottle rockets with parachustes, the longest one to stay up wins
- Catapults, crossbows, slingshots,
...
- remote controlled cars
It doesn't take too much to involve technology into these:who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
Having left high school in the past few years, I'd say you have no chance whatsoever of gaining the interest of those who would not already be interrested in the idea of any geekfest. A programming competition, robitics fest, whatever. The geeks will show up, the others will not. Simple as that. If a kid has reached high school with no ambition towards technology (or intellectual advancment of any kind), they will not be swayed by any advertising you might try. If they have developed for 15 years or more with no interest in the way the world around them works, they are lost to intelligencia everywhere. Only those with a previous interest in learning and self-betterment will attend. For those, set up any geeky event, and they will be there in force, whether it's robitics, programming, or physical sciences, they'll be there.
Robot competition == gay and (worse) boring.
I can directly attribute my interest in computers to video games. One path is:
- Video games
- Pirated video games
- Bypassed copy protection
- Reverse engineering
- Assembly language programming
- Buffer overflows
- Computer Security Expert (present day)
Another is:- Video games
- Multi-user video games
- Create my own maps/skins/bots for multi-user video games
- Create my own scripts for multi-user video games
- Become a Programmer
- Write my own video games
- Software Engineer (present day)
Finally, for you hardware types:- Video games
- Better video card
- Faster RAM
- Overclocked CPU
- Chip design
- Computer/electrical engineer
(We all know the real reason Intel creates faster computers: It's for better video games, stupid!)Now the Internet, while that STARTED with video games (the whole "play against your buddies" concept), it only really started to take off with pron...which, strangely enough, also ties back to video games, e.g. Leisure Suit Larry.
LIKE THE TIMECUBE, NO ONE CAN RESIST MY LOGIC AND PROPERLY AUTHORED HTML!!!
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Check out the project page or read an article (pdf) about the first one.
Every high school in the state is invited to the competition. Percentage-wise we get a terrible response but do usually get a half dozen to a dozen teams. It basically boils down to there being a volunteer at the school willing to help the kids out.
The kids always seem to have a great time flinging eggs at our giant frying pan. And we hope they gain some interest in engineering through the process of building their catapult and documenting the work.
I teach in a high school and here are some ideas that my kids have talked about: (if you sponsor something, have great prizes like awesome video cards or ipod mods or other gearhead gadgets). Make the contest either national (run it with CompTIA or somebody) or in a metro area (like Louisville, KY).. statewide contests bomb. Your role is that you gather the prizes and be the judges. 1. Sponsor a computer repair bench competition in the gym of a school 2. Sponsor a modding contest for educational adaptations of a computer or PDA (like the Alphasmart DANA) 3. Sponsor a software contest for school needed handy utilities (like teacher sign-in box, or parent tardy sign-in kiosk, or security guard hallpass checking wireless PDA software that creates passes on the fly), or a host of a million ways that IT could actually improve a school but doesn't because the people who run IT are in central office instead of center hall. The most important thing is go into a school and chat with the IT teachers and kids and connect them to you as well as vice versa. Most IT classes (A+, Cisco, Network+, Linux+, Programming, etc) just don't see enough real world folk in schools. For more, contact Gary Hannah at the CompTIA Jobs+ (E2C) Program (www.comptia.org).
I live in the very, very rual Alabama (no DSL!!). I to a local high school, and I am one of the very few geeks around. I, personally, enjoy computers. But I observate alot of social groups colliding. Like, there's the Skateboarding Punks (who, well, likes skateboarding), then there are the Gothics (who are people that like the color black), then the "Stupid-Other-Relgions-Your-Going-To-Hell" ground (I am apart of that group, the ones who are going to hell). So there are a wide variety of things going on. Since I have only 3 days left of this semester, I will monitor various people and ask question, I'm on the yearbook staff and I won't look as stupid as I usually would. I'll post my results in my blog!
Of course there are people who aren't white. It's the act of preferring them over people who are white, simply because of their race, that makes the OP a racist piece of shit. If you agree, you're a racist piece of shit too. If you prefer white people over non-white people, you are also a racist piece of shit. Just because you discriminate against white people instead of non-white people doesn't make it any less racist nor any less despicable. Fuck all racist pieces of shit. Please note that I believe everyone has the right to be racist. However, I reserve the right to tell racists that they are pieces of shit and to fuck off.
http://xkcd.com/386/
I used to be a highschool substitute teacher, so I would usually see the students at there worst (or best, depending on how you look at it).
From what the students told me, here are some ideas to get them interested in science/computing:
Network security: Present a challenge to the students to get past whatever "web-minder" or "net-nanny" type filtering scheme the district has installed so they can get to the more, er, colorful websites. (I was very surprised and delighted to see a group of inner-city students circumvent the filtering measures the school had so they could browse the pages of low-rider magazine online. When I caught them, they were a little scared, until I told them "I won't tell on you if you show me how you did it". They showed me, and man those kids were bright.)
Physics/bio-chemistry: While many people will look down on this, kids are going to smoke weed, and no amount of force-fed DARE propaganda can stop them. Now, you have to be very careful about how to present it, but interesting projects might include Bon..er, "water-pipe" construction, asking the kids "What chemical reaction is going on when the smoke is filtered through the water?", or "What is the best diameter for the main shaft of the pipe for maximum efficiency". I once found a student going over extensive notes, with diagrams and calculations for the design of his custom water-pipe.
Of course, neither of these could ever be seriously put into play in a public school, but for a great deal of motivation for some students is found in the desire to do something they shouldn't be doing. I for one learned quite a bit about computer software trying to get pirated games to run when I only had 640k of base memory to work with. The games themselves were incidental, it was the fact that I could take any number of cracked games and get the old DOS to run it which made the process interesting to me.
I think you'd get a lot of students interested if you can somehow create the illusion of misconduct in the exercises.
The Internet is generally stupid
1. I am a FIRST Lego League coach for middle school. Its great stuff and kids love it. Tons of work. I have also assisted with the HS FIRST robotics competition. Also great stuff. In both cases it can be difficult to rope in the less geeky but its possible. Some find the geek inside and thrive. Its cool to watch.
Stuff I think about doing later:
2. Teach them how to program a microcontroller and use it to control motors, leds, etc. (STAMP or OOPIC are pretty easy). Build something fun.
3. Get a group of kids and head to the dump. At our dump there is always a pile of old PC's and monitors, every one I have ever left with has worked fine. Have each kid find an old junker or two to work on. Bring it back to class and help each work through getting it to come back to life, then hand out the fedora CD's (or whatever). Teach them how to set it up as a web server/web development platform/firewall/whatever.
4. Profit!
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You are absolutely right. Back when I was in high school (89-93), the geeks in the Computer Club made a fortune with a matchmaking program they wrote. For a small amount of money ($3-5 IIRC), students would fill out a survey regarding what characteristics they were looking for in a date (bookish vs non-intellectual, blonde hair vs brunette, conservative vs. liberal, etc.). They also filled out a section that described themselves. The club members then entered the forms into a database and wrote an application to find three matches for each person. A few days later, every participating student received a printout with three potential matches.
It was hugely popular and made hundreds of dollars for the club's coffers.
do something along the line's of Google's Billboard
post binary, hexadecimal, or other random mathematical/computer stuff around the halls. Something easy enough to solve, but cryptic enough to get attention.
It's an easy way to weed out the curious ones who will most likely be adept to learning tech from the jocks etc. who don't care in the least.
I hate having to reply to an earlier, unrelated post to get noticed, but it seems like I'll have to here...
By far the best way to get students involved is to offer them some time in your shoes. As a freshman at a private school, the instructional technology coordinator somehow noticed that I was both interested in and somewhat competent with computers, and offered me a volunteer summer internship assisting the Computer Services department with various tasks. That first summer, I did a lot of manual labor and not so much technical stuff, but I started learning the ropes, and was hired as an hourly staffmember (part-time during the year, full-time during the summer).
My previous computer experience had really only involved administering a very basic home network. At school, I learned about NT domains, network hardware and infrastructure, deployment of software, servers, group policy, zones and subnets, and numerous minor details specific to my school's network. I also honed my hardware and software troubleshooting and optimization skills. But most importantly, I learned about dealing with ornery clients -- most often older faculty -- and minor network sabotage by students.
By the time I left for college this fall, after my fourth summer of work, I was far more competent in dealing with computers than I could ever have hoped to be had I not had the opportunity to work in CS.
It might be a little risky to just kind of open up tech internships to every student at your school/district -- you'd have too many people applying and among those applicants would be too many incompetent ones. So my suggestion would be to have a screening program that would involve fixing various problems; an interview process; and a provision that (like me) the student would have to work a period of time as a volunteer. You'd end up with a program that would only allow a select number of students to participate, but that would both help you and would help those students skilled enough to get the job.