The Westside Science Club (WSSC) is an out-of-school time opportunity that brings participant-directed STEM activities to under-resourced late-elementary and middle school students in low-income housing units in Los Angeles. WSSC and CCI Solar began a collaboration in 2012 with funding from the NSF to connect research scientists from Caltech with the underserved youth in the club. Another community partner, Wildwood School, provided high school students to act as near-peer mentors for the club members. CCI Solar's research on the efficient and economical conversion of solar energy into stored chemical fuel provides an entry point for informal science education activities designed to introduce pre-high school participants to basic chemistry and related STEM concepts such as physics and plant biology. Activities were largely student driven, though lessons were developed by the team of facilitators including the club's founder Ben Dickow, Wildwood teacher Levi Simons, and students, post-docs, and staff from Caltech. Each lesson was tied to CCI Solar's research through a mind-map of related chemistry concepts. The activities were mostly intended to be "maker-type" experiences that allowed the club members to follow their own interests and questions. Caltech students and postdocs from CCI Solar helped deliver activities while honing their science communication skills with the young WSSC audience. The team is currently adapting the model of this successful collaboration to develop another science club in a different Los Angeles community. Two-years of lessons developed from this project, an evaluation of the project by Kimberly Burtnyk of Science for Society, and a model on how to replicate such a program are available in the project final report below. This was a two-year pilot program that was completed in July 2014.
What motivates kids to take multiple programs at the Minnesota Zoo? What makes Minnesota Zoo programs so comfortable and engaging that some kids just keep coming back? How do these experiences support kids’ interest in animals and wildlife conservation? The Minnesota Zoo (MN Zoo) offers over a dozen educational programs for youth tailored to encourage exploration of “what makes the MN Zoo tick.” After 10 years of programming for hundreds of youth, a cluster of youth return again and again to learn more about animal care, wild wildlife conservation, zoo work, and volunteer opportunities
Researchers from the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS), Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center and two other centers recently published LOST Learning Opportunities: Learning about Out-of-School Time. The book, published by Springer, addresses conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues related to studying learning in everyday and afterschool settings. Primarily written for researchers, LOST Learning Opportunities includes chapters on what math looks like in everyday family settings, how science is positioned in afterschool, how children's learning and
Find out how afterschool and summer learning can support student success in the Expanding Minds and Opportunities compendium, released by The Expanded Learning & Afterschool Project. This collection of nearly 70 articles includes reports, studies, opinion commentaries, and examples of best practices makes the case that opportunities in out-of-school time learning can have positive impacts on youth development—including in STEM.
The Afterschool Alliance, a Washington, D.C. based advocacy group for out of school learning, has released a highly anticipated report on outcomes for youth in STEM after school programs. The report is the result of a 10-month study funded by the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and the Noyce Foundation, of afterschool providers from around the country that were surveyed on “appropriate and feasible” outcomes for STEM learning in afterschool settings. The survey results were organized into a framework of outcomes, indicators, and sub-indicators that demonstrate how afterschool contributes to
Presentation on NSF grant DRL-0917536 (""Studying and Improving Networks for Disseminating STEM Educational Materials in After-School Programs"") presented at the CAISE Convening on Organizational Networks, November 17th, 2011.
In this article, the author describes the process and result of a statewide effort in New York to develop an afterschool quality framework and assessment tool that can be used to guide program design, reflection, and assessment. One benefit of the tool is that it can be used by program stakeholders without the participation (i.e., the expense) of an external observer. This article might be of interest to ISE educators seeking to adopt existing program evaluation tools that do not require the participation of external evaluators.
The authors of this paper conducted an evaluation of two pilot credential programs both starting in Massachusetts in 2007, the School-Age Youth Development Credential (SAYD) and the Professional Youth Worker Credential (PYWC). Their reflections on the need for professional development for out-of-school time (OST) staff and youth workers show that the field of youth development at present is at crossroads. Based on the evaluation of these two pilot programs, the researchers advocate the establishment of a nationally recognized credential to professionalize the youth development field. The need
This study is a summary of the review of the research literature of afterschool quality frameworks. It presents the debates on program effectiveness to help organizations, policymakers, funders, and evaluators make decisions about afterschool programming. This review is of help to ISE educators and program directors in understanding the current trends in outcomes-based programming, while grounding the conversation in the complexity and range of relevant developmental tasks.
The paper describes how middle school students appropriated and transformed a particular learning experience in an afterschool literacy program in Philadelphia. The learning experience was designed to ensure that urban African-American, middle school girls had access to technology and learned how to use it to create a web page that showcased future career aspirations. The program’s director enlisted the help of male, Caucasian high school students from the suburbs of Philadelphia to facilitate the technology learning experience for the middle school youth (both girls and boys were in the
This article describes an afterschool science program targeting girls from communities underrepresented in the sciences. The authors argue for the need for such programs to build on research findings that are relevant to girl-specific programs, which they summarize in the article. This article provides a highly condensed overview of research findings and illustrates how the authors have applied these findings to their program design. It could be of interest to ISE educators seeking to design STEM programs for girls.
With an increase in the enrollments of youth with disabilities in afterschool programs, organizations must evaluate if their programs truly welcome children and youth with disabilities. The authors of this study developed a valid and statistically reliable instrument, Organizational Developmental Model of Inclusion for Individuals with Disabilities (ODMI-IWD), to assist the program providers in developing policies to improve on perceived weakness in the areas of inclusion: diversity, differential treatment, congruency, motivational imperative, and experience.