This paper sketches the context for participation in science by girls from historically underrepresented populations and offers a detailed description of Sisters4Science (S4S) and its personalized, girl-centered pedagogy. The S4S example suggests a need to complement current out-of-school science programs with lessons from girl-centered practice and research.
This report discusses the legacy and impact of YouthALIVE! (Youth Achievement through Learning, Involvement, Volunteering, and Employment), an initiative in the 1990s of the Association of Science-Technology Centers with support from the DeWitt-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund to enable museums and science centers to establish programs for youth from underserved populations. YouthALIVE! programs are characterized by intensive, multi-year engagement in the life of the institution, including a wide variety of opportunities for science teaching, learning, and mentoring, and conducting scientific
The Learning and Youth Research and Evaluation Center (LYREC) is a collaboration of the Exploratorium, Harvard University, Kings College London, SRI International and UC Santa Cruz. LYREC provides technical assistance to NSF AYS projects, collects and synthesizes their impact data, and oversees dissemination of progress and results. This center builds on the Center for Informal Learning in Schools (CILS) that has developed a theoretical approach that takes into account the particular strengths and affordances of both Out of School Teaching (OST) and school environments. This foundation will permit strengthening the potential of the NSF AYS projects to develop strong local models that can generate valid and reliable data that can guide future investment, design and research aimed at creating coherence across OST and school settings. The overarching questions for the work are: 1. How can OST programs support K-8 engagement and learning in science, and in particular how can they contribute to student engagement with K-8 school science and beyond? 2. What is the range of science learning outcomes OST programs can promote, particularly when in collaboration with schools, IHE's, businesses, and other community partners? 3. How can classroom teachers and schools build on children's OST experiences to strengthen children's participation and achievement in K-12 school science Additionally, the data analysis will reveal: 1. How OST programs may be positioned to support, in particular, high-poverty, female and/or minority children traditionally excluded from STEM academic and career paths; and 2. The structural/organizational challenges and constraints that exist to complicate or confound efforts to provide OST experiences that support school science engagement, and conversely, the new possibilities which are created by collaboration across organizational fields. Data will be gathered from surveys, interviews, focus groups, evaluation reports, and classroom and school data.
A June 2010 report from the Exploratorium's Learning and Youth Research and Evaluation Center (LYREC) highlights trends, questions, and findings related to out-of-school-time science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (OST STEM). Based on an October 2009 meeting, the report aims "to inform the work of OST educators, researchers, and funders." The report notes that "out-of-school-time programs such as summer camps,afterschool programs and Saturday classes provide students with important opportunities to: (1) spark, sustain, and deepen their interest in science, technology, engineering
This article describes the mission, approach and success of the New Jersey Academy of Aquatic Sciences' Community and Urban Science Enrichment Program (CAUSE). Through the CAUSE program, local high school students receive training in marine science and biology, and work as mentors for younger students and as educators. This article also points out that an enrichment program to increase visitorship from underrepresented youth is not enough; science centers must utilize Positive Youth Development (PYD) strategies to "lay the foundation" toward individual learning. Key findings from project
Having developed the concept of near-peer mentorship at the middle school/high school level and utilized it in a summer science education enhancement program now called Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science or GEMS at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), it is now our goal to ultimately expand this program into an extensive, research institute-based source of young, specially selected, near-peer mentors armed with kits, tools, teacher-student developed curricula, enthusiasm, time and talent for science teaching in the urban District of Columbia Public Schools (specific schools) and several more rural disadvantaged schools (Frederick and Howard Counties) in science teaching. We describe this program as a new in-school component, involving science clubs and lunch programs, patterned after our valuable summer science training modules and mentorship program. Our in-house program is at its maximum capacity at the Institute. Near-peer mentors will work in WRAIR's individual laboratories while perfecting/adapting hands-on activities for the new GEMS-X program to be carried out at McKinley Technology HS, Marian Koshland Museum, Roots Charter School and Lincoln Junior HS in DC, West Frederick Middle School, Frederick, MD and Folly Quarter Middle School and Glenelg HS, in Howard County, MD. Based on local demographics in these urban/rural areas, minority and disadvantaged youth, men and women, may choose science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET) careers with increasing frequency after participating, at such an early age, in specific learning in the quantitative disciplines. Many of these students take challenging courses within their schools, vastly improve their standardized test scores, take on internship opportunities, are provided recommendations from scientists and medical staff and ultimately are able to enter health professions that were previously unattainable. Relevance to Public Health: The Gains in the Education of Mathematis and Science (GEMS) program educates a diverse student population to benefit their science education and ultimately may improve the likelihood of successfully entry into a health or health-related professions for participating individuals. Medical education has been show to improve public health.