A new grant competition will award $150,000 to libraries, museums, and other nonprofits to provide hands-on learning opportunities this summer for youth across the country to help make the online experience more civil, safe and empowering. The Project:Connect Summer Youth Programming Competition is administered by the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), with support from the MacArthur Foundation through a grant to the University of California, Irvine, and in partnership with the Born This Way Foundation. Grants will support a series of local hands-on events July through September where young people collaborate and compete through activities such as hackathons, maker spaces, digital journalism and communications labs, and mentoring workshops. Programs must be based on the understanding that learning happens anywhere, anytime and should be equitable, social, participatory, and reflect kids’ interests. Applications are due June 10. More information can be found on the Digital Media and Learning Competition website.
Mayors and city council members from across the country co-authored a piece on the importance of afterschool programs in Education Week. It said: “For our cities to remain beacons of hope, it is our responsibility as municipal leaders to help young people develop the skills and talents they need to find gainful employment and become successful adults in a knowledge-based economy. City leaders must work together with schools, parents, and others to help young people thrive, with a shared understanding that their success will determine the success of our cities. Maximizing the after-school hours is one important way in which city governments can improve educational outcomes for children and teenagers and reinforce what they learn in the classroom.” The op-ed was signed by Mayors Christopher Coleman (St. Paul, Minn.), Karl Dean (Nashville, Tenn.), and Betsy Price (Fort Worth, Texas) and City Council Members James Mitchell Jr. (Charlotte, N.C.) and Ronnie Steine (Nashville, Tenn.).
Using data from a survey of young people, associate director of the Center for Education Policy Research Angelo Gonzales and his colleagues at the University of New Mexico, “have identified a strong relationship between students who are involved in activities outside of school and those who engage in less risky behaviors,” the Albuquerque Journal reports. “Specifically, students who said they were involved in extracurricular activities reported lower levels of attempts to commit suicide, smoking, binge drinking, drug use and sexual activity…and significantly higher rates of daily physical activity.” The New Mexico-specific data is from the 2011 state Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey of middle and high school students.
Students from the Whitney Community Center afterschool program are walking around the playground with Boise City Council member TJ Thomson as part of a local initiative to encourage physical fitness, the Idaho Statesman reports. Boise Mayor David H. Bieter has pledged to walk 150 miles in honor of the city’s sesquicentennial.
The the Worcester Technical High School Robotics and Automation Technology Team, one of 420 teams from 23 countries, won the 2013 VEX Robotics World Championships trophy over the weekend. Worcester Polytechnic Institute President and CEO Dennis Berkey told the Telegram & Gazette, “Their world championship award reinforces the power of STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] education, specifically as it applies in robotics, and especially the highly effective curriculum and dedication of the faculty and staff at ‘the other’ Worcester Tech.”
“Detroit Public Schools plans to provide preschool to all of the city's 4-year-olds, offer music and art after school and allow schools to house educational and social services for 12 hours every day as part of an ambitious effort to attract and retain students,” the Detroit Free Press reports. The new plan also calls for a longer school day and a longer school year and for turning some of Detroit’s schools into community schools. Detroit Public Schools has lost two-thirds of its enrollment in the past decade and has a deficit of about $76 million and long-term debt of about $400 million. The district is hoping its reform efforts will enable it to keep its students and its per-pupil funding so that it won’t be forced to close more schools.
The Herald-Standard reports that California State Rep. Peter J. Daley (D) recently visited the Charleroi Elementary Center’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers afterschool program to read to students from Brownsville, Connellsville and Charleroi area school districts. The afterschool program has partnered with California University of Pennsylvania. The program includes daily skill development, individual tutoring, physical education, cultural and technology enrichment.
Some students from Access 21, an afterschool program at Haverhill High, are spending two afternoons each week painting “images of native plants such as sumac trees, and cattails as well as animals such as deer, foxes, coyotes, great blue herons, eagles, seagulls, geese, beavers, turtles and turkey vultures” on 12 4-by-8-foot panels for the Merrimack River Rail Trail, the Haverhill Gazette reports. The panels will be mounted on the back wall of a hardware store abutting the rail trail, creating an 80-foot-long by 20-foot-high mural for all to see.
This week, 20 youth finalist teams will meet at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, for the Conrad Foundation’s 2013 Innovation Summit. Teams will present their designs of a “global innovation product” developed for the Spirit of Innovation Challenge to a panel of scientists, industry leaders, entrepreneurs and government officials. Challenged to create commercially viable products to address issues of global sustainability, teams applied their STEM knowledge in innovative ways, developing products for one of four categories—Aerospace and Aviation; Cybertechnology and Security; Energy and Environment; and Health and Nutrition. These young entrepreneurs will undergo a tough evaluation on technical content and market viability from an expert panel, and the winning team in each category will receive a $10,000 grant to continue their product development.
I spoke with one of the teams, Chicks in Space, a subset of the Neighborhood After School Science Association (NASSA) from Ava, NY. MaryAnn, Lillith and Adia—ages 17, 14 and 12, respectively—are among the 5 teams competing in the Aerospace and Aviation category. Their product, the Garden of ETON (Extraterrestrial Organic Nutrition), provides a way for astronauts weary of dehydrated foods to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables. Through a series of experiments on plant growth in microgravity conditions, Chicks in Space developed a hydroponic gardening system that can be used in space! Their original submission video, below, follows the research and development process of the Garden of ETON.
Members of NASSA are enthusiasts of all things space—even the club’s name was created in homage to NASA! Last year, they were able to take a trip to the NASA Glenn Research Center. The club began five years ago when they couldn’t find afterschool programs that addressed the topics they desired or offered programming as often as they wanted. Beginning with a water purification challenge, the club then delved into activities from the Deep Earth Academy, which covers ocean drilling science and from NASA Wavelength, an exhaustive database of peer-reviewed Earth and space science resources. In 2011, the club developed a microgravity experiment for a NASA contest, which earned them the chance to have astronauts perform their winning experiment on the International Space Station (ISS)!
Chicks in Space closely follow the astronauts on the ISS. Don Pettit is the girls’ favorite astronaut to watch, whose video series “Science off the Sphere” can fill many a lunch break. Pettit served as inspiration for the Garden of ETON due to his in-flight experiments growing plants. The humorous Diary of a Space Zucchini chronicles one such microgravity experiment. The team hoped to build on the challenge of successfully growing plants without the earthly gravitational clues and to develop a sustainable fresh food source to be used on the ISS and in other microgravity environments.
Through their participation in science fairs throughout their elementary school years, along with their experiments in their afterschool club, the girls have become experts in the scientific process, demonstrating truly rigorous research and design skills. For help with some of the high-level science content needed to develop and refine the Garden of ETON, the team has Skyped with experts in the U.S. and overseas. They’ve been amazed at the willingness of scientists and other professionals to help out!
Ultimately, the Chicks in Space aim to present their findings to the International Space Station and hope that what they’ve developed can contribute to future NASA missions. The girls find space travel fascinating, believing it will be for the benefit of mankind if we can achieve it on a large scale. These entrepreneurial scientists have a bright future and the Afterschool Alliance wishes MaryAnn, Lillith and Adia the best of luck at the Spirit of Innovation Challenge!
This month we’re putting the spotlight on two of our grant opportunities for afterschool programs: the well-known MetLife Foundation Afterschool Innovator Awards and the new Noyce Foundation Afterschool STEM Impact Awards. Afterschool STEM programs can apply for an Impact Award now until May 15. The Innovator Awards nomination process has been moved to later this year—stay tuned for further details and key dates. These webinars will introduce you to both grant opportunities, complete with tips about the application and selection process.
Afterschool Innovators & Middle School Success
April 25, 3:00 – 4:00 PM EDT
Since 2008, the Afterschool Alliance and MetLife Foundation have collaborated to highlight and expand the work of innovative afterschool programs supporting children, families and communities across the nation. Now in the fifth year of the partnership, we have awarded more than $160,000 to programs in a variety of categories, including digital learning, school alignment, service-learning, middle school bullying and college readiness. Join us to learn more about last year’s MetLife Foundation Afterschool Innovator Award winners and hear helpful tips about the selection process. Register now!
Afterschool STEM Impact Award Insights
April 30, 1:00 – 1:30 PM EDT
The Afterschool Alliance recently announced a new national award for afterschool programs offering science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) – the Afterschool STEM Impact Awards, sponsored by the Noyce Foundation. This year’s award categories are focused on partnership models, and computing and/or engineering. This webinar will be incredibly useful to potential applicants as we will discuss the intentions behind creating the Afterschool STEM Impact awards and what we’ll be looking for in the review process. The Afterschool Alliance team will also address the definitions used for the award categories. Participants will have the opportunity to ask any questions they might have to help craft a winning application! Register now!
The Afterschool Alliance and the Noyce Foundation are excited to announce the new Afterschool STEM Impact Awards! Two $10,000 awards will be awarded to exemplary afterschool programs offering science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to students in grades 4 through 8.
As afterschool STEM programming grows around the nation, we want to recognize programs that are clearly demonstrating their impact on participants. Such programs highlight the power of afterschool programs as key partners in STEM education reform and can also serve as best-practice models.
In addition to the cash award, winners and other notable applicants will be promoted nationally through a variety of opportunities—they will be featured in a special series of Afterschool Alliance issue briefs, invited to participate in webinars, co-present at national and state conferences, and generally highlighted as model programs.
Applications for this year are invited for two award categories:
Afterschool programs that are a strong partnership between an afterschool provider and a STEM-rich institution(s), which include science centers or museums, nature centers, universities, government labs, STEM-related businesses, or other similar institutions. Programs may focus on any STEM topic.
Afterschool programs that have a strong computing and/or engineering component. Computing is not about learning how to use technology—it’s acquiring the skills and knowledge required to create technology. For the purposes of this contest, computing includes but is not limited to coding, programming mobile apps, and software or hardware design. Engineering programs should be rooted in the engineering design process, and students should be developing and building a solution to a problem.
Additional details are available on the award website, along with a link to the online application. Applications are due by May 15, 2013.
Know an afterschool program that’s perfect for this award? Share this opportunity with your colleagues and friends. We can’t wait to hear about the fantastic STEM programs across the nation and the impact that they’re having on kids!
Camdenton 4-H FIRST LASER afterschool students are not only spending their afternoons preparing for a robotics competition, but they are also giving back to the community. Recently members of teams from Osage Beach Elementary, Hawthorn Elementary, Oak Ridge Intermediate, Camdenton Middle School and High School purchased math and science games, books and resources that will be used in the new Citizens Against Domestic Violence shelter’s play room. “The Camdenton 4-H LASER teams take the core values of FIRST as serious as designing and fabricating robots to complete complex tasks for state and national competitions. In fact, FIRST uses the robot to get students excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) but the main goal of FIRST is to develop life skills that will help students with relationships, teamwork, finance, fundraising, budgeting and project management," Afterschool Services Director and Afterschool Ambassador Sherry Comer told the Lake News. “FIRST teaches students to see the correlation between academics, community, industry and making the world a better place.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution profiled afterschool program LaAmistad as part of its Doing Good series earlier this week. LaAmistad (“friendship” in Spanish) supports Latino and first-generation students and their families through tutoring, mentoring and programming promoting academic, physical, and personal growth. In 10 years, LaAmistad has resulted in 100 percent of its students maintaining an A/B grade average, 90 percent reading at grade level and some students have earned college scholarships. “We aim to enrich their lives inside and outside the classroom,” Angharad Chester-Jones, program director of LaAmistad told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s about raising model citizens to ensure success for our students and families.”
Last week afterschool students with the Triton Middle School 21st Century Community Learning Centers Mock Trial program held a mock trial to commemorate the culmination of the program. About a dozen middle school students split up into one of three teams: the prosecution, the defense and witnesses. A jury of 12 composed of school officials, teachers and other members of the school community listened to the 50 minute trial as Judge Peter Doyle presided over the proceedings that ultimately ended in a mistrial because of a hung jury. “Triton Regional School District Assistant Superintendent Brian Forget, who also served on the jury, praised the hard work of his students, calling it a great learning experience,” the Newburyport News reports.
Afterschool students in the Oxnard Scholars After School Program went head-to-head during a spelling bee last week. This was the first year of the scholars’ bee competition. Winners from each school site competed by grade level against one another. “Next year, the organization hopes to be able to help the champions participate in a next level up of spelling bees, such as the county and national contests,” the Ventura County Star reports.
Last week, Afterschool Caucus Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) put her support for afterschool programs and STEM education on the record on the Senate floor. Read her full statement below, or download here.
Madam President, I rise today to speak about the great work that afterschool and summer learning programs in California and across the country are doing to engage children and youth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.
Afterschool and summer programs are a vital part of our country’s education tapestry. They provide engaging, hands-on learning experiences that stimulate student interest, develop crucial skills, and drive home the relevance of STEM to our daily lives. Out- of-school learning opportunities help children develop the academic and life skills, such as problem-solving and determination, which are crucial in STEM fields. Additionally, these programs provide key opportunities for mentors and role models to engage with children.
High-quality afterschool STEM learning programs are having a significant impact on the young people who participate in them. A recent study shows participants in afterschool and summer programs have improved attitudes toward STEM fields and careers, increased STEM capacities and skills, and a higher likelihood of graduating from high school and pursuing a STEM major in college.
One of these exemplary programs is the Woodcraft Rangers Program in Los Angeles, CA. Woodcraft Rangers exposes middle school students to cutting-edge STEM activities, including robotics. This highly engaging program allows students to configure high-tech robotics, enhancing their STEM skills, unlocking their imaginations, and exposing them to real-world problem- solving situations. Afterschool and summer programs are uniquely positioned to deliver valuable enrichment activities like robotics that help children gain valuable creativity, critical thinking, and team-building skills.
In addition to programs that serve children and youth directly, organizations such as the Afterschool Alliance are working to advance policies, research, and partnerships so that all children can access rich STEM education experiences through out-of- school programs.
Private companies are also embarking on efforts, such as Time Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds, CAMM, initiative, to promote youth interest and performance in STEM fields during out-of-school time. Businesses like Time Warner Cable know that investing in STEM education now helps ensure a robust workforce in the future, and they know that afterschool, summer, and other out-of-school programs are key venues for students to develop the problem-solving, team-building, and creative thinking skills necessary for a strong STEM workforce. I applaud the afterschool and summer learning programs, advocacy organizations, and community partnerships across the country that are working to advance our students’ STEM achievement and our country’s future through enriching out-of-school learning. To support the work of these organizations, I hope that the Senate can come together to reauthorize the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program—the only Federal program dedicated to supporting afterschool and summer learning.
This week, 20 youth finalist teams will meet at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, for the Conrad Foundation’s 2013 Innovation Summit. Teams will present their designs of a “global innovation product” developed for the Spirit of Innovation Challenge to a panel of scientists, industry leaders, entrepreneurs and government officials. Challenged to create commercially viable products to address issues of global sustainability, teams applied their STEM knowledge in innovative ways, developing products for one of four categories—Aerospace and Aviation; Cybertechnology and Security; Energy and Environment; and Health and Nutrition. These young entrepreneurs will undergo a tough evaluation on technical content and market viability from an expert panel, and the winning team in each category will receive a $10,000 grant to continue their product development.
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