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The Tau Beta Pi Association
Chapter: California Phi
Project number: 11
Chapter Project Report

INSTRUCTIONS: Please complete each of the seven sections below either in the space provided or by attaching additional sheets and using the items below as an index. If sheets are added, please use the Roman numerals to identify the section and Arabic for pages within a section (III-2 is the second page of Organization and Administration). Any additional information which may be helpful to another chapter would also be appreciated, but do not send extraneous material that would not be useful to other chapters. Please type or print clearly using dark ink.
Project name: MESA Saturday Academy Web Forum
Date(s) of Project: March 23, 1996 Target Audience: Junior High Students
Number of persons who participated in this project.
Members: 3
Tana Cicero, Heather Watson, Dr. Stark
Candidates/Electees: 0
Hours spent on this project. Organizing: 1 Participating: 3
DESCRIPTION OR INDEX TO ATTACHED DESCRIPTION:

I. General Description:
The Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program bring local elementary students in contact with these important disciplines. It is focused on minority and underrepresented students who otherwise might not get encouragement to enter technical or scientific fields. UOP periodically holds Saturday Academies members of MESA clubs at local schools can come and participate in workshops and lectures by educators and professionals. Our chief advisor set up a session in which the MESA kids could document their activities and thoughts about the program on a World-Wide Web page which resides on the UOP Web server. Tau Bates assisted the students and formatted their input for presentation on the Web.

II. Purpose & Relationship to Objectives of TBPi:
This project was another opportunity to give schoolchildren exposure to the resources available on the Web, as they were instructed in its use and given the opportunity to try it out on 25 PCs in an Engineering lab. It also served to publicize the MESA program supporting students for the future of the profession.

III. Organization & Administration: in conjunction with another group? Yes
The MESA Saturday Academy is organized through UOP's Minority Engineering Program. Dr. Stark organized the presentation of this particular workshop, planned the Web pages and instructed the students on the use of the web. The students themselves came up with the look and content they wanted on the pages. Dr. Stark scanned in photos from earlier MESA events for the students to caption and include in the pages.

IV. Cost & Personnel Requirements:
There was no cost to the chapter. Approximately 30 students attended each of two sessions, and the three members present seemed to be fairly adequate to cover the activity.

V. Special Problems:
The students occasionally logged off of the systems or reset them entirely, causing us to have to stop and log them in again.

VI. Over-all Evaluation/Results (Be specific):
The program was quite successful -- the result of the students' work can be seen at /eng/mesa/index.html.