YOUTH OUTREACH
Math Options
The 12th annual Math Options Career Day Program 
took place on May 13, 2008. Continuing Education was excited to welcome over three hundred Pennsylvania educators and female students from forty schools in Erie, Crawford, Warren, and Potter counties to the Behrend campus.
The program’s major effort is the Career Day event which is held every May for seventh and eighth grade girls chosen by their teachers. Teachers are encouraged to select six girls from their schools who demonstrate an interest and aptitude in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. Math Options Career Day is designed to challenge and motivate girls to continue to take advanced math and science courses in high school, so that they can 
pursue exciting and fulfilling careers in the STEM disciplines.
Hands-on workshops, the School Challenge Contest, interaction with professional women in the STEM fields, peer mentoring, and career exploration activities make for an exciting, fun day for the girls, teachers, and volunteers.
For more information on this program, visit the Math Options web site.
21st Century Kids
The 21st Century Kids Program is designed to bring youth from rural populations to Penn State Behrend. The current communities served are Corry, Warren County, and Forest County.
These programs are possible through Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) grants and collaboration with our partners: Warren/Forest Hi Ed Council, Corry Hi Ed Council, Warren County YMCA, and the Warren County Library.
The following events are incorporated into the 21st Century Kids program:
A. Explore Your Options!
Throughout the 2007-08 and again during the 2008-09 school years, all 7th-grade students from the Warren County School District and Forest County Schools will visit Penn State Behrend and the Tom Ridge Environmental Center (TREC) for a day. The students will tour campus, participate in science and engineering workshops, and eat lunch in the campus dining hall. This gives them the opportunity to experience a college setting, interact with undergraduate students and faculty, and explore the world of STEM.
B. 21st Century Kids Summer Visit
Middle school students from Corry, Warren, and Shenango visit campus for a day in the summer to participate in STEM workshops with Behrend faculty. They then travel to TREC to spend the afternoon with the Pennsylvania Sea Grant scientists and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) staff, touring the research wing and conducting marine experiments.
These programs are developed in partnership with the Corry Higher Education Council, the Warren/Forest Hi-Ed Council, and Continuing Education at Penn State Shenango.
C. Warren County Summer Camp 2007
Penn State Behrend faculty traveled to the Warren County YMCA to lead various age groups in science experiments. The summer of 2007 found the children exploring the “Science Behind the Magic of Harry Potter”, which included our own chemistry instructor in costume as Harry!
D. Warren County Summer Camp 2008
This year our summer camp program will expand to a three-day event that will include visits to Warren by Behrend faculty, and an extended day visit to TREC to perform in-depth marine experiments. Sixth-grade students attending the Warren County YMCA summer program will be eligible to participate in this event.
Women in Engineering Day
Another important outreach initiative was recently co-sponsored by Continuing Education and the School of Engineering. The Women in Engineering Day brings high school girls to campus for a day of hands-on engineering workshops. The girls interact with Penn State Behrend engineering faculty and professional women engineers from General Electric Transportation Systems. Due to the success of the 2006 pilot program with Erie's Collegiate Academy, it was expanded this year to include girls from other area school districts.
For more information on these CE outreach programs and other school district outreach opportunities, please contact Barbara Hido at 814-898-7584 or by email at bjh29@psu.edu.
Penn State Behrend is home to twenty-five outreach centers and initiatives. Continuing Education is a key outreach center, and CE can help you access the vast resources for solutions to a variety of needs, including research, faculty expertise, student projects, internships, and more.
To access information on the many outreach centers, visit the Penn State Behrend Research and Outreach Web site, email industryhelp@psu.edu, or phone 814-898-7700.