PrincetonUniversity
 

Teens go on a scavenger hunt at Firestone Library

by Jennifer Greenstein Altmann
It was a brutally hot July afternoon, and three teenagers were searching the halls of Firestone Library for the Milberg Gallery.

A map indicated that the gallery was on the second floor, but a ride on the elevator only yielded offices. Puzzled, the teens asked a friendly library employee, who explained how to get to the gallery -- through another set of elevators on the other side of the building. "We never would have known that if we hadn't asked," said Anna Stange to her companions.

The three teens -- Jerell Blakeley, Jamie Sparano and Stange -- were participating in a library scavenger hunt designed for the 44 students enrolled this summer in the Princeton University Preparatory Program. The six-week session is designed to prepare for college a group of students from Ewing, Princeton and Trenton who have excelled in high school and are traditionally underrepresented at highly selective colleges and universities.

The students make a three-year commitment to attend the program during the summer, starting after they complete their first year of high school. Four Princeton undergraduates participate in the program as teaching assistants.

Once the three students reached the Milberg Gallery, a room filled with prints, paintings and photographs of the American landscape, they were awed into silence by the displays.

"Come look at this!" exclaimed Stange, gesturing to a photograph of Niagara Falls from the 1850s. "We used to care a lot more about pictures than we do now," she observed. In the guest book, the three jotted down their names, with Stange adding, "Glad to have been able to find this well-hidden area of beautiful art and watercolors."

The scavenger hunt is just one of the many learning experiences for the students this summer. They toured the Princeton campus with George Scherer, professor of civil and environmental engineering, examining how acid rain and other elements can deteriorate stone buildings. They visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and talked about astrophysics with Neil de Grasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium and a visiting lecturer at Princeton. And they have spent close to five hours a day in the classroom discussing novels such as "Of Mice and Men" and some of the concepts underlying calculus.

"A lot of the classes go above and beyond what we would learn in school," said Sparano.

The program, which is in its second year, hopes to prepare students not only to gain admission to highly competitive colleges, but also to be equipped to take advantage of the opportunities such schools offer. The scavenger hunt served to help them learn about the resources that are available at a school such as Princeton and how to use them.

"The type of learning here is more hands-on, not just listening to the teachers talk," said Amanda Boone, who is spending her second summer in the program. "And it gives you a feeling of college life as you walk around the campus."

The program runs through Aug. 16.

High school students Jerell Blakeley (foreground) and Anna Stange search the stacks in Firestone Library as part of the Princeton University Preparatory Program, which prepares high school students to attend highly selective colleges and universities.
 

Princeton undergraduate Brandon Nicholson (center) helps high school students Blakeley and Jamie Sparano (right) complete a scavenger hunt in Firestone Library, one of the many learning experiences for the students in this summer's Princeton University Preparatory Program. Nicholson is a teaching assistant in the program.

photos: Denise Applewhite