Imagine towers built of marshmallows and spaghetti noodles, destructed computer hardware, or marbles submerged in a bucket of water. Some might look simple to the average eye. To participants in the College of Engineering’s RAMP-UP program, these are items with which to teach math and science to students.
The program, Recognizing Accelerated Mathematics Potential in Underrepresented People (RAMP-UP) is a $2.5 million grant project. As a result of funding by the National Science Foundation’s GK-12 Program and the GE Foundation, the outreach program has been up and running since 2004.
According to Lynn Albers, a graduate fellow with the program, the purpose of RAMP-UP is multifaceted.
‘Our mission is to impact three key stakeholders,’ Albers said. ‘The three groups are the K-12 students in Wake County public schools, the teachers in Wake County and the N.C. State University undergraduate and graduate students.’
In order to do this, the program pairs undergraduate students with teachers throughout multiple schools in Wake County.
‘Through working in the public schools, the undergraduates get to work one on one with the teacher in the classroom by helping to prepare lessons, working in small groups and tutoring,’ Albers said.
Maribeth Evans, a senior in middle grades math and science education, acknowledges that the purpose of RAMP-UP is not just to boost grades of underrepresented youth and their appreciation for math and science, however. The program also strives to provide role models for these students that they can actually relate to.
‘We bring a different perspective,’ Evans said. ‘We are younger than the regular class teachers for the most part. We can build more friendships into our relationships with the kids, so they respect us more and feel more comfortable asking for the help that we provide as positive role models.’
According to Evans, some of the students she has encountered over her past two years with RAMP-UP didn’t believe in the prospect of attending four-year universities upon completing high school. However, after interacting with them, Evans said some of the students find themselves actually pondering the idea of college.
‘At the beginning of the year, when I first started, some of the kids would say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go to college,’ or ‘College is stupid,’ or ‘I don’t really think I can make it,’ and then they start talking to us and we show them that it is possible.’
In order to get students to actually do the math and science that was previously avoided, RAMP-UP incorporates a wealth of hands-on activities that are both intellectually engaging and fun for students. One example of this is a project that the RAMP-UP Fellows designed last fall.
‘We created a competition where the students built windmills out of milk cartons, Popsicle sticks and index cards,’ Albers said. ‘We brought in a fan and they had to design a windmill that could raise a Dixie cup from the floor to the top of a table as fast as possible.’
The students are not the only ones on the receiving end of this grant project. In addition to the Wake County students, the undergraduate students partaking in this experience also benefit greatly from the program ‘- especially those planning to go into teaching fields, as they have the opportunity to gain incredibly valuable teaching experience that will come in handy in their own classrooms one day.
‘The feedback that I’ve received from the education students is that they really enjoy the experience and it helps make them better student-teachers,’ Albers said. ‘I get the pleasure of watching them grow not only academically but emotionally.’
Evans, who student taught this past semester, attributes a lot of her professional development to RAMP-UP.
‘Before RAMP-UP, I’d never been in a classroom as a teacher and I had never planned and taught a lesson, so RAMP-UP gave me a gateway to stick my toes in the water before I jumped right in.’
According to Albers, Evans isn’t the only one who has developed as a result of RAMP-UP.
‘Many of them start out being very shy, and by the end of two years, they want more, they want to run their own clubs, they want to do more lessons, they want to teach the class more.’
Even the engineering students benefit from participating in the program.
‘As one of our students said, ‘If you can explain something to a third grader, you can explain it to anyone,’ Albers said. ‘As engineering students, our greatest hurdle is overcoming shyness and the inability to communicate. This program helps all engineering students improve their communication skills.’
Perhaps the best thing, however, is the joy that comes from the kids who are most directly affected.
‘It’s a beautiful thing to see a fourth grader on the day of the science fair beaming with pride over their project,’ Albers said.
