Stories from Coaches & Coordinators

| Find Coaches | Find Youth Team Members | Prepare the Lab |

Find Coaches

At Pelham Village in Framingham, the lab coordinator invited a young woman to be a coach, knowing that she was excited about kids, and eager to learn more about web page creation herself. She agreed when an older student offered to baby-sit her child during the coaching time.

In Roxbury, the lab coordinator talked to the proprietor of a local restaurant about having her daughter join a ScienceQuest team. The girl's mother asked questions about the project, and she got motivated to volunteer with ScienceQuest. Since the restaurant was not busy between 3 PM and 5 PM, she became a coach and worked with kids during her afternoon free time.

Find Youth Team Members

Cruz Management has an after school program in a different building from the computer center, so kids don't regularly come over to the computer center after school. In order to let kids know about ScienceQuest, the computer center director decided to take the computer to them! She and one of the coaches went to the after school program to describe ScienceQuest to the kids, taking a portable computer with them. Each kid was asked to describe his or her interests, and then the coach showed the kid how to look up Internet information about that topic. Interested kids then signed up for the program. Ten kids signed up-five on Tuesdays and five on Thursdays. At the end of the project, the center director designed a ScienceQuest mural with pictures of the kids at work. The mural attracted more kids to the project, and the next round of ScienceQuest had begun.

Castle Square Tenants' Organization runs a very busy after school tutoring and computer center. High School students are employed as homework tutors to the younger kids, and everyone has some free time on the computers. The team members were requesting a special role within the center, but they were too young to be tutors and too old for regular after school program. ScienceQuest fit the bill. The center director established rules for participation: be the right age, commit to the project and have completed all homework before ScienceQuest time started. Eight youths joined the first year, and others were on a waiting list.

Prepare the Lab

At High Point Village, the lab coordinator cleared out a bottom file drawer in her office adjoining the lab and let the kids store their notebooks and other materials there. In addition, during ScienceQuest time, no other kids were allowed into the room. This created a special atmosphere that encouraged the youth to feel the value of their work.