The Clubhouse Network: A Global Community for Creativity and Achievement, a program of Boston's Museum of Science, will develop, pilot, and evaluate Light it Up! Engaging Young People in Digital Making Activities. Digital making activities combine design, computational thinking, and engineering practices that are all fundamental learning skills for the 21st century. Over the course of six months, the project team will develop a one-day, hands-on workshop that will give museum educators strategies to inspire a more diverse population of middle and high school-aged youth to consider educational and career pathways in STEM fields through engagement with local science centers. The workshop will be implemented twice with a group of 12 educators from regional museums. The museum will use tested evaluation tools to improve the quality and outcomes of the workshops. A successful prototype and evaluation will result in practices that can be adapted by other museums and cultural institutions to better reach young people with digital making activities.
Georgetown County Library will improve the digital-age critical workforce skills of local young people through STEM-related digital activities. Classes relating to online STEM resources, digital video production, and app development will result in increased skills and interpersonal abilities, as well as an appreciation for the public library as a dynamic and informative place. By working with a number of community organizations, the library seeks to reach a local youth community that has historically experienced high rates of poverty and low rates of high school completion, and build on previous efforts to provide job fairs, skills training, and other initiatives.