By Anne Burke

For many California teens, summer means sleeping late, hanging with friends, and catching a new blockbuster movie. But for science-savvy high schoolers in Santa Barbara County, "school's out!" brings something far more rewarding: UCSB's program for aspiring young scientists.

Housed at the university's California NanoSystems Institute, the Apprentice Researcher's Program each year offers high school students an opportunity to do university-level research in fields ranging from biology to chemistry to experimental design. Since its inception 17 years ago, the program has become so popular that scores of teens from throughout Santa Barbara County compete for the dozen slots available each year.

The monthlong program exposes high schoolers to the rigors of a real job in the sciences. Participants spend Monday through Thursday working alongside graduate-student mentors in a science or engineering lab. Most mentors work under faculty members associated with the NanoSystems Institute, the joint UCLA-UC Santa Barbara endeavor that seeks to develop technologies at science's hottest new frontier, the nano - or microscopically small - scale. Joining the teens each year is one high school teacher, who can experience of working in a university research lab while also gleaning ideas for incorporating the emerging field of nanoscience into the high school curriculum.

On Wednesdays, the teens and teacher present their work orally to the group. Fridays are looser: Participants attend workshops, tour projects and facilities at the CNSI, then head outside for Frisbee and fun.

The goal of the Apprentice Researcher's Program, said coordinator Wendy Ibsen, is to humanize and demystify the work of scientists and lab researchers so that teens of all types - not just the kids who enter science fair and know the periodic table - start thinking about careers in these fields.

Oftentimes, Ibsen said, students who show early aptitude and interest in science and engineering are turned off by stereotypical images of crazed scientists toiling in dreary isolation amid a clutter of test tubes. Through the program, participants learn that science and engineering are collaborative and exciting fields. Of the 200 students who have completed the program, about 85 percent have gone on to pursue science degrees in college.

For the science-loving Silverman siblings of Santa Barbara, the program has become a family tradition. Oldest sibling Craig was the first to attend in 2003, followed by Danny, Carly and finally Brett, now in his final year at Santa Barbara High School.

Brett Silverman had so much fun that he stayed on for several weeks after the departure of his fellow apprentices to continue his research. His project was the production of blue-green Gallium nitride light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, those super long-lasting lights used in traffic signals, motorcycle headlights, and flashlights.

Silverman's long hours in the lab appear to have paid off. He and mentor Kelly McGroddy generated data suggesting that these light-emitting diodes may be more efficiently produced using oxygen rather than nitrogen in the heating process.

Beyond the exciting results of his research, Silverman will have lots to talk about back at school. The teen conducted his tests in a high-security clean room. To enter the room, Silverman approached a biometric device that captured an image of his retina, which was matched against an archived photograph of the teen's eye. Then, an electronic voice uttered, "access granted." For Silverman, it was all very James Bondish.

"For a high school student like me, that was a once in a lifetime experience," he said.

Anne Burke is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.