FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2009
Chicago, IL – Project Exploration has released Discover Your Summer 2009, its third annual resource guide to summer science education opportunities for middle and high school students. The guide highlights 175 science programs—primarily in the Midwest—and offers tips on completing applications and preparing for interviews.
Discover Your Summer encourages students, especially minority youth and girls, to participate in summer science enrichment programs to broaden their horizons and prepare them for future education. Copies of the guide have been distributed to middle and high schools throughout the Chicago metropolitan area and the collar counties. The guide is available for free online at www.projectexploration.org/dys.
Programs in Discover Your Summer 2009 range from daytime classes at museums to weeklong residential camps at universities. Topics cover the full array of science and mathematics, from aerospace engineering to zoology. Students can get paid to do research, work in a lab, conduct field work in the mountains, or complete service learning hours. The guide focuses on programs offered in 13 states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
Chicago Public Schools Office of Mathematics and Science, the Mayor's Office of the City of Chicago, Motorola Foundation, and Science Chicago supported the development and distribution of Discover Your Summer 2009.
About Project Exploration
Project Exploration's highly personalized science immersion programs, fieldwork, and youth development initiatives significantly increase high school graduation rates among students from economically disadvantaged communities: over 95% of Project Exploration fieldwork participants graduate from high school. These students are three times more likely to enroll in a four-year college than their peers, and over one third of Project Exploration field alumni major in science once in college. At a time when four out of five jobs require science and technology skills, Project Exploration provides a new model for engaging and retaining today’s youth in science and technology.
For more information about how Project Exploration is changing the face of science, visit www.projectexploration.org.
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Contact:
Laura Jansen
Project Exploration
Phone: (773) 834-7614
Email: ljansen@projectexploration.org
PROJECT EXPLORATION
950 E. 61st Street
Chicago, IL 60637
tel. 773.834.7614
fax. 773.834.7625
www.projectexploration.org
09:02:20 | 
Deerfield, IL (March, 2009) – Sharks are among the most popular animals featured in television and cinema. And today among sharks, the undisputed king is the great white, a giant predator that can exceed 20 feet in length. Despite the popularity of great whites, relatively little is known about their biology, and even less is known about their evolutionary origins. A new 4-million-year-old fossil from Peru described in this month’s issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology provides important evidence suggesting the shark’s origins may be more humble than previously believed.
are present in these ancient sediments. To get a complete picture of a shark’s dentition, scientists have to put these isolated teeth together using information from modern sharks. Having a fossil such as this one with its teeth in their natural positions is important because the shapes of particular teeth and their orientations in the jaw help determine how shark species are related to one another.
Because this specimen also preserved part of the spinal column, scientists were able to determine that the individual was at least 20 years old when it died. The age determination was based on counting the alternating light and dark bands present in the vertebrae, which calcify with age. Such bands have been shown to represent seasonal changes in modern sharks; this was tested in the fossil by examining difference in the isotopic composition of the dark and light bands, which reflects seasonal temperature changes. A modern great white shark of similar age likely would have been larger, suggesting that this fossil species grew at a slower rate.
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