The Supercomputing Challenge
Project GUTS
Summer Roundups

Announcements

The Supercomputing Challenge and Project GUTS are holding "Summer Roundups" June 21st through June 25th at several locations around New Mexico.

The main purposes of the roundups are to give students and teachers the taste of computer modeling and to get a commitment from these people to have a GUTS club or a Challenge team.

Here is a Summer Roundups Wiki.

Here is a Press Release.

Here is a color flyer.

Sites

1. Dona Ana NM CAC Gateway, Las Cruces, June 21 - June 25, Betsy and Eleanor and a crew from NMSU including Richard Oliver and the Young Women in Computer Science
2. UNM-CARC NM CAC Gateway, Albuquerque, June 21 - June 25, Janet Penevolpe and Mary Sagartz
3. New Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas, June 28 - July 2, Harry with GUTS Club Leaders Carla and Elizabeth
4. Northern New Mexico College NM CAC Gateway, Espanola, June 28 - July 2, John Paul and David with staff from Engineering at NNMC. Afternoons only.

Registration

Go to the Registration web page, and fill out the information.

Questions?

Send email to consult at challenge dot nm dot org

Information

At the Summer Roundup workshop, students and teachers will be introduced to the Project GUTS and Supercomputing Challenge programs. Project GUTS and the Supercomputing Challenge form a pipeline through which students progress from well-structured curricular units to independent computational science research projects. During this free workshop, students and teachers will learn about computer modeling and how it is used by scientists and others in cutting-edge research. Participating teachers will also learn how to start a Project GUTS club and sponsor a Supercomputing Challenge team.

Irene Lee, Project GUTS' principal investigator, believes that successful integration of technology is possible when students connect the technology to the larger world.

Students will attend from 9am - 12 noon. Dismissal will be at noon. Teachers will attend from 9am - 3pm with a lunch break at noon.

Project GUTS or the Supercomputing Challenge?

Founded in 2007, Project GUTS - Growing Up Thinking Scientifically - is a summer and after-school science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) program for middle school students in New Mexico.

Project GUTS is for students from all different backgrounds who want to engage in scientific inquiry by investigating topics of interest to their local communities. The program is free to students, but enrollment is limited.

For more information on Project GUTS, please visit our website at www.projectguts.org.

The Project GUTS approach is geared towards after school club implementation of curricular units. School day and elective course implementations of Project GUTS units have also been successful. Project GUTS' guided approach using 6-week units offers beginning students an introduction to complex systems, computer modeling and programming. Students have the opportunity to customize existing models to reflect local conditions they wish to study such as spread of disease, ecosystems, social networks.

The Supercomputing Challenge is a statewide program for middle and high school students and teachers. The Challenge provides opportunities beyond school: applying problem based learning, laying the groundwork for young people who will be scientists addressing critical issues. Teams use powerful computers to analyze, model and solve real world problems.

The Supercomputing Challenge approach is geared towards mentoring teams of students who are interested in working on projects of their own specification. Challenge team sponsors mentor student teams as they conduct research, design and implement a computational model then collect and analyze the results of experiments run on the model. Successful Challenge students are self-directed and highly motivated.

We see Project GUTS and the Supercomputing Challenge as forming a pipeline through which students can get an introduction to computational modeling then progress to independent research. Our professional development programs are integrated and flexible enough to accommodate middle and high school teachers interests in implementing either the Project GUTS curriculum or supporting Challenge teams at either level.