If the Earth is a peppercorn, what would Jupiter be?

Stumped?

Answer: a Brazil nut. And Saturn would be an almond.

These are not your usual analogies for our planets. But then again, the class that Notre Dame astrophysicist Phil Sakimoto teaches is not your usual summer school class.

The 150 students whom he instructs in Pasquerilla Center and the Jordan Hall of Science are really at Notre Dame attending an annual camp, called the National Youth Sports Program, which was originally started by the NCAA.

Each year the youngsters, age 10-16, come to the campus to take part in sports activities like softball, basketball, and volleyball with a little instructional component on the side: namely nutrition and drug and alcohol awareness.

But recently more than a few people at Notre Dame entertained some expansive ideas. Sakimoto, Notre Dame’s physics and astronomy outreach specialist, was one of them.

“We decided there is one thing wrong here. If we bring the kids to campus every summer, shouldn’t we be doing something to give them a chance to actually be students at a place like this?” he explained.

NASA and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific provided the materials for the classroom lessons, such as  “Earth as a Peppercorn.”

The youngsters, who began arriving on campus on June 4, are gaining insight about our solar system, space flight and the universe from a unique perspective.

Rebecca Pettit, Director of Urban Programs and Initiatives with the Center for Social Concerns, explained that Notre Dame has been home to the National Youth Sports Program since 1991.

“The NYSP is  a five week sports enrichment camp that targets children ages 10-16 who live at or below poverty in South Bend and Mishawaka.  In its largest years the camp boasted a participant roster of more than 600 children,” she said.”

 For five weeks kids are transported to and from campus to learn the fundamentals of football, soccer, golf, swimming, basketball, volleyball and fitness, in addition to participating in drug and alcohol prevention classes, writing, math and science, careers education and computers. 

“The primary objective of the program is to expose children at great risk for health concerns such as child hood obesity to higher education, healthy life styles, provide educational remediation and supervision, while encouraging their participation in sports at their home school.  Children also receive a free medical exam and insurance during the camp, two USDA sanctioned meals, transportation, t-shirts and use of all equipment free of charge,” she said.

 Over 3,500 local kids have participated in this program since its arrival to Notre Dame.  The program has continued to grow, is well received in the community, and has twice been recognized by its peer institutions as meritorious.  

“All of this could not be done without the generous support of the University of Notre Dame and its longstanding community partners.  This list of partners includes: St. Joseph Hospital, Memorial Hospital, City of South Bend, South Bend Community School Corporation, South Bend Housing Authority, TRANSPO, and Madison Center,” she said.

 The camp employs local teachers, sports trainers, Notre Dame  and local college students.  The students and AmeriCorp members receive room and board.  Students also receive  academic credit as part of the Summer Service Learning Program.  

After 37 consecutive years, Congress eliminated all funding for NYSP in the FY2006 Labor, HHS, and Education appropriation. Since that time more than 250 programs have closed their doors. NYSP at Notre Dame is now one of about 50 programs in the country.

To save the program, Pettit assembled a group of concerned university and community members to talk about how to restructure the program top to bottom.  From this discussion arose the idea that the program would raise its sights.

At the time of these discussions, Pettit had already been discussing with Sakimoto the need to bring more science content into the NYSP program.  Shortly thereafter came the news that three HST Cycle 15 research proposals from within the Notre Dame Physics Department had been selected for funding.  Two research proposals were won by Peter Garnavich and the other was won by Dinshaw Balsara  under the auspices of the Center for Astrophysics at Notre Dame University (CANDU).

“After a series of further discussions, what to do became abundantly clear.  The E/PO supplements for these three Cycle 15 projects should be combined to inject a space science component into the NYSP summer program and to pilot the process of identifying high interest/high potential youth and providing them with a targeted year-round enrichment program.  Space science would be the test subject,” she said.  

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place through conversations that Ms. Pettit had with Jay Caponigro, director of Notre Dame’s Robinson Community Learning Center.  The Robinson Center would host the year-round enrichment activities.  This would complement the Center’s usual tutoring and after school activities with a program that catered to high achievers.  Notre Dame’s role in the community would grow from that of being good neighbors to that of purposefully grooming carefully selected youths to succeed at a university like Notre Dame.  Thus, the Supernova Club was born.  

 This year's camp is to be Notre Dame's last camp facilitated by the Center for Social Concerns.  The camp accepted 170 applications this summer.  Talks are underway to find this program a new home within the local community. Notre Dame will continue to assist with the student piece of the project.