ood neighbors reach out to each other, share resources, and build long-term relationships. That's how strong communities are created, nurtured and sustained. WPI, a good neighbor in Worcester County for nearly 130 years, is reaching out in new directions to populations that might not find their way to campus without such encouragement. Camp REACH is one such effort.

A two-week overnight adventure in engineering, Camp REACH (Reinventing Engineering and Creating new Horizons) offers its campers no hikes, no boating, no campfires, no marshmallows, no mosquitos. Instead, it provides hands-on introduction to engineering for girls in Worcester County who are entering the seventh grade. Applications poured in for its first session, held last summer oncampus.

The camp directors, Denise Nicoletti, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Chrys Demetry, Norton assistant professor of mechanical engineering, selected 30 campers without regard to academic record. They wanted to reach girls who might not otherwise have explored engineering as a career option. They organized Camp REACH with help from WPI's Minority Affairs and Outreach Programs Office, and with funding from the National Science Foundation.

"for some reason, many girls in this age group begin to lose interest in math and science, and start to fall behind the boys," Nicoletti says. "We want to catch them before that happens. It's a detriment to the community when a large segment of the population is left out of making decisions about engineering careers."

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At Worcester's Burncoat Middle School are campers Joslyn Foley, left, and Erin Dlianis with, from left, Denise Nicoletti, Chrys Demetry and Assistant Principal Alice Bowen.

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Often, the girls whose math and science test scores fall in adolescence are the same ones who earlier showed aptitude in those disciplines. While the reasons behind the decline are still being debated, the implications are all too clear: the number of women persuing careers in math and some sciences has increased sharply since the late 1970s, but the growth is not as strong for women going into engineering.

To pique girls' interest in engineering as both a career and a collaborative process for solving everyday problems, Nicoletti and Demetry organized the camp curriculum around several community-based engineering projects for Worcester-are clients. Working in three teams, campers redesigned the supplies and recycling room at a day care center, designed a toy and book storage area for a hospital pediatric ward, and put together an information resource for parents of premature infants in a neonatal intensive care unit. They also participated in on- and off-campus workshops that focused on various specialties within engineering. A favorite, conducted on a Cape Cod beach, encouraged campers to "examine the building dynamics and material properties of sand." They buit sand castles.

The camp experience will resonate throughout the community and beyond, Nicoletti says. "I think Camp REACH will make a significant contribution because it involves a wide range of people - not only the campers but their parents, several high school students who serve as counselors, the teachers and the clients. All those groups see what college life is like at WPI. The campers were so excited to be in a college atmosphere - just to eat in the cafeteria and sleep in the dorms."

The end of the two-week camp signified the start in the next phase in the relationship between the girls and WPI. Nicoletti and Demetry will bring the campers back for a reunion and a follow-up on their projects. Some could come back to campus as members of WPI's Class of 2007. It's diffucult to predict the choices 12-year-olds will make within the hour, let alone a year from now. But there is one certainty: 30 Worcester County girls had their educational interests broadened and career options expanded when WPI reached out to its young neighbors.

Elizabeth Walker