College students can choose to enter into a two-year contract to mentor teens or to help with existing afterschool programs. Mentors help with homework and plan activities centered on career awareness. For one such activity, a Merrimack physics professor was recruited to teach lessons on aeronautics by building and testing paper airplanes. About 90 elementary school faculty have been trained in teaching through experiments in an Eisenhower Foundation-supported program. Once trained, teachers may borrow science equipment from the college.
Elementary teachers praise the program, noting dramatic changes in the students' outlooks.
Student participants now regularly purchase science-oriented books from their school book clubs, says Gage. The eighth graders come to the Merrimack campus once a month to work with science students and faculty in classrooms, in laboratories, and in the field. Accept the Challenge, begun as an English enrichment program, has developed into a college preparation, career counseling, and scholarship program. Students who stick with the program through high school and are accepted at Merrimack receive a full, four-year scholarship to the school. More than 200 students have participated in Accept the Challenge, and there are currently 25 program participants on scholarship at Merrimack.