New Haven Independent

The teens were at Career High School for the 5-week long GEAR UP program, designed for students about to enter high school. GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergrad Programs) aims to prepare students for high school and beyond by giving them a jump start on their high school education and helping them build contacts with teachers.

“It’s all about the contact, making a connection,” said site-coordinator Kim Steele, adding that she wants the kids to call her when they’re in high school and they need help or advice.

Wednesday was parent visitor day, though parents were conspicuously missing. In an hour visit, the only parents encountered were the mother and father of Angelica Lopez, pictured.

Lopez is building a lie detector in the inventions class. She did everything herself, following a diagram given to her by the teacher. The circuit breaker is connected to the battery and the speaker.

Lopez gets to keep it when she’s finished.

In another classroom Derek Stephenson taught robotics. He showed the kids how to build model vehicles and then instructed them to run the vehicles down a ramp and time how long it takes for the it to get from the top of the ramp to a designated spot in the hallway.

Robert Stewart, a teaching assistant, helped Nelson Colon with his vehicle, pictured.

The students also take language arts, math, computers and MAAX (Maximizing Adolescent Academic Excellence). The MAAX program helps students transition to high school. The language arts class has concentrated on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Weekly field trips keep the kids coming, said Steele. The students visited Yale art galleries, the Peabody Museum and the Bienecke Rare Book Library where they saw Hurston’s first manuscript of Their Eyes Were Watching God, written in her own handwriting.