Advanced Technologies summer camps introduce youth to technology
For three summers in a row, Alcorn State University’s Advanced Technologies Department opens its doors to elementary, middle and high school students, to teach them about various technologies during the early stages of their lives. This year, two technology summer camps were conducted on the Lorman campus in June and one camp on the Vicksburg campus in July. The five-day camps consisted of lectures and hands-on training activities in the areas of computer networking, robotics, radiation health physics, electrical engineering, and geographic information systems (GIS).
Chairman of Advanced Technologies Kwabena Agyepong stated, “The kids really enjoyed being involved in various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related areas through hands-on training.”
The coordinator of the camps Steve Adzanu said, “For the past three years, the department has been actively involved with our summer camps that demonstrated to the kids how their classroom training could be applied in the real world.”
Michael Atkins, one of the assistant coordinators of the camps, shared, “We see lot of enthusiasm in kids toward STEM education and we hope to continue offering these camps in the coming years. This year, we were able to extend these camps to the Vicksburg campus as well”.
The department would like to thank faculty members Jermiah Billa, Dr. John Adjaye, Dr. Sam Nwaneri, Denease Moore and Randy Derby, for their immense help and assistance in various activities. Also, the department would like to thank the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) personnel, Dimitri Kusnezov and Cory Jackson, for supporting these programs through NNSA’s Minority Institutions Partnership Program.
Pictured: Health Physics faculty Jermiah Billa demonstrates to the technology summer camp participants the basic properties of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.
