AUGUSTA – As part of an initiative to promote STEM education, scholarships will be available for high school students in an architecture camp at the University of Maine at Augusta.

UMA is partnering with the Reach Center, a program of the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, to encourage students interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM.

Up to 25 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors who sign up for the sustainable architecture course in the YoUMA summer camp and a yearlong group project will have their $250 registration fee paid by the Reach Center.

The course, “Inventing Your Sustainable Space,” taught by UMA professor Rob Sherman, is available in the first week of YoUMA, which runs July 16-27. Partial scholarships are also available for other courses, which offer college credit.

UMA admissions counselor Michael Cooley said students don’t have to be certain they want to go into a STEM-related field.

“By using YoUMA as a springboard, we can gauge a student’s interest and foster that,” Cooley said. “Even if they’re not 100 percent sure if that’s a career that they want to get into for the rest of their lives, this gives them an opportunity and a venue where they might not have had that before.”

Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Susan McMillan can be contacted at 621-5645 or at:

smcmillan@mainetoday.com