SHAPE - Summer Health Activities and Professions Exploration

sHaPe – Summer Health Activities and Professions Exploration summer camp provides middle school students with the opportunity to explore careers in the health sciences, participate in hands-on activities that include laboratories and simulations, gain academically challenging scientific knowledge, learn about personal health and fitness, and have a positive exposure to a college experience in a safe setting. The primary goal of the camp is to educate under-represented populations about health and to encourage them to pursue careers in the health sciences.

The camp is designed for students entering 8th or 9th grade - a key time when students are considering careers and preparing themselves academically for college. The camp runs for two duplicate weeks, with boys attending one week and girls attending the second week (to prevent gender bias and/or dominance and also avoid any awkwardness regarding the human body). The target audience is urban, minority students from Grand Rapids Public Schools, with 20 students attending each week. The camp was designed as community health education partnership between our public schools and a local university.

Both short-term and longitudinal evaluation measures have been implemented. Short-term measures include student and parent surveys, content pre/post tests and attitudinal evaluations which have determined significant changes in the students' outlook on health professions and attending college. In addition, longitudinal research is set to determine the camp's impact on students' future career choices through their high school graduation.