Colleen Schenning knows she would like to be a pediatrician some day. When the 13-year-old enters River Hill High School in the fall, she probably will join the school's Technology Magnet Program and study biotechnology.
To that end, Colleen is spending the first week of summer vacation hooking up a computer, baking a cake and researching a vacation she won't take.
She is one of about 100 Howard County pupils spending this week at the Technology Magnet Program's summer camp. "I wanted to learn more about the program and to find the area that I wanted to study," Colleen said.
The camp, started four years ago, is designed for middle-schoolers who are considering attending one of the county's two technology high schools - River Hill or Long Reach. But the camp is open to any county pupil in seventh or eighth grade, even if he or she is not enrolled in public school.
"Once the kids and parents see what goes on in the program, it helps them make a better decision for high school," said Natalie Meyers, an instructional facilitator for the Technology Magnet Program. Camp lasts a week, she said, because "it's more of an introductory camp. The purpose of the camp is to introduce students to the different career-cluster areas that the Tech Magnet program offers."
For four hours each morning, the pupils work at the Applications and Research Laboratory School in Ellicott City, learning about the five "clusters" - or areas of study - offered by Tech Magnet schools. The areas are biotechnology/health; communications; construction and manufacturing; energy, power and transportation; and hotel, restaurant and travel (HRT).
Only about 30 percent of the campers apply to the Tech Magnet schools. Some attend camp just for the projects.
On Monday, Colleen and her campmates worked on the communications cluster. They designed a T-shirt using Corel DRAW, a graphics program, then set up a computer network on which they could chat with one another. Tuesday was their day for hotel, restaurant and travel. They will study biotechnology Friday.
Wossen Ayele, 13, said that he enjoyed designing the T-shirts because the project combined art and technology. "I've always been interested in it," he said.
Even pupils such as Colleen, who have an idea about their choice of concentration, spend time on each of the five areas. Teams of pupils rotate through the five clusters and work on a project each day.
Chef Eric Queen of Capital Grille in Washington has volunteered at the camp since its inception. A graduate of the technology program, Queen teaches culinary arts in the HRT cluster, working with pupils in the school's kitchen - twice the size of the restaurant kitchen where he is employed.
Eight pupils helped Queen bake a sheet cake large enough to feed 50 people. "This is called a team-play cake," he told them. "Everybody had a hand in this."
Queen says he teaches the young people how important teamwork is in the restaurant business.
LaDeana Wilson, a home economics teacher from Howard High School, is teaching tourism at camp. Her pupils take the role of travel agents and are given two hours to design a vacation package. They must research prices and specifications for air travel, car rental, hotels and activities.
The focus is on marketing and computer skills, as the students put together a computer-designed brochure. "Most of the activities they do require teamwork," Meyers said.
At the end of the week, there is a celebration during which the teen-agers demonstrate their projects. Meyers said that one of the goals of the program is to encourage them to enjoy learning about technology.
Wossen, who will be an eighth-grader at Clarksville Middle School, hopes to go into the Tech Magnet program. "I wasn't quite sure what kind of technology I wanted to go in, and I've gotten some idea from this camp," he said.