Why ScienceQuest?
Quality after school programs can have enormous, positive impact on youth and their communities. Recently, more attention has been paid to how young people spend their time when they are not in school. Many after school programs struggle to retain the interest of middle school kids, but often lack structured activities to attract them. ScienceQuest provides a program that fills that need and that, in addition, addresses the following key issues and constituents:
- After School
- Middle School
- Girls, Minorities, and Youth with Disabilities
- Science and Technology
- Project Based Learning
- Community Based Organizations
- The Importance of Informal Science Education
After School
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The hours that kids spend out of school (after school, on weekends and over the summer) can be an ideal time to complement the structured learning in school. Research from The National Institute on Out of School Time (NIOST) has shown a number of benefits to children who participate in quality after school programs. In general, those participants have better peer relations, grades, and conduct in school. They are prepared to make better life choices and achieve academic results in school, and they report enjoying reading and other academic activities.
Resources
National
Institute on Out-of-School Time
The AfterSchool Alliance
Middle School [Up]
Early adolescence (age 10 - 14) is a time of rapid physical, cognitive, and social growth. Young people are developmentally ready to make sense of the world and delve into socially relevant issues, and they are perfect candidates for science education. Science should capture their imagination and energy, and they should be successful science learners. Unfortunately, however, this is not always the case. Findings indicate that middle school students perform more poorly in science than their elementary school counterparts. After school programs like ScienceQuest allow young adolescents to investigate important topics and can also be the spark that keeps them in school and keeps them learning about the world.
Resources
National
Middle School Association
Reports
of the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development
Girls, Minorities, and Kids with
Disabilities [Up]
The science achievement levels of black, Latino and other minority populations are lower than those of white students. Even more disheartening, students with disabilities scored significantly lower than their non-disabled peers on the 8th grade Massachusetts statewide test (MCAS). Nationally, low-income Americans use the Internet almost 50% less than those in the highest income bracket, denying them access to vast storehouses of information, a means to communicate with family, friends, neighbors and experts, and a forum for publicly presenting and publishing products. Access to engaging and relevant science and technology through programs like ScienceQuest ensures that all people become informed citizens, realize career opportunities, and live healthier lives.
Resources
ERIC
Clearinghouse on Urban Education
National Latino Children's Institute
National Information Center for Children
and Youth with Disabilities
How to Promote
the Science and Mathematics Achievement of Females and Minorities
WEEA Equity Resource Center
Science and Technology [Up]
"Today's students are the first generation that will be expected to have technology skills for careers and future success. These skills are the "new basics." By the year 2000, 60 percent of all jobs will require high tech computer skills. Over the next seven years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is estimated that there will be a 7% growth in computer and technology related jobs--jobs with a real future. In this Information Age, information is the currency that drives the economy. If people do not have access to information or the necessary tools, they cannot participate in this economy." - Former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley
Science, engineering, and technology are critical for all students to understand and appreciate. Yet according to the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), more than 50 percent of all students plan to drop advanced math and science courses, regardless of their career interests and without knowing the consequences. Science programs geared to middle school age youth can stimulate interest in further science study.
Resources
Media
Awareness Network
NASA Home Page
NASA Education Page
National Action Council for Minorities
in Engineering
Project Based Learning
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ScienceQuest is a project-based learning model for after school that offers an alternative to short, isolated, teacher-centered lessons and instead emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary, student-centered, and integrated with real world issues and practices. Project-based learning engages youth in their own learning. It provides opportunities for students to pursue their own interests and questions and to make decisions about how they will find answers and solve problems. Project-based learning helps make learning relevant and useful to students by establishing connections to life outside the classroom, addressing real world concerns, and developing real world skills. Many of the skills learned through projects such as ScienceQuest are those desired by today's employer, including the ability to work well with others, make thoughtful decisions, take initiative, and solve complex problems. (This description has been adapted from information on Challenge 2000's PBL site)
Resources
YouthLearn
Challenge 2000 Project
ISTE's Project-Based
Learning
Community Based Organizations
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Community Technology Centers and other community based organizations provide local computer access to urban and rural people where they might not otherwise have access to these tools of the 21st century. Youths gather after school to use computers, to do homework, research school topics, or email their friends. By sponsoring a ScienceQuest team, computer centers offer another avenue to serve community - by hosting academically enriching, science, and technology explorations in the neighborhood. ScienceQuest supports the efforts of the community based organizations to design and host these after school opportunities.
Resources
Community
Technology Centers Network (CTCNet)
National Community Education Association
The Importance of Informal
Science Education [Up]
Informal science education, at its simplest, is science learning that occurs outside of the classroom. Informal science education experiences, such as visiting a zoological park or a science museum, support and reinforce the formal science curriculum that young people receive in school, as acknowledged in the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996). For those who are finished with formal schooling, informal science education is a means to increase science knowledge. Informal learning about science and technology is at the heart of ScienceQuest and contributes an important element to youth success.
The National Science Foundation explains that informal science education encompasses "… learning activities that are voluntary and self-directed, life long, and motivated mainly by intrinsic interests, curiosity, exploration, manipulation, fantasy, task completion, and social interaction. Informal learning occurs in an out-of-school setting and can be linear or non-linear and often is self-paced and visual- or object-oriented. It provides an experiential base and motivation for further activity and learning."
The Texas Informal Science Education Association defines informal science learning as"…providing unique learning environments that increase appreciation and understanding of science, mathematics, and technology and their applications through voluntary and often self-directed experiences for individuals of all ages and backgrounds."
Resources
Reading
Online, by Judith M. Zorfass and Jennifer Dorsen on ScienceQuest
and the benefits of literacy development.
Texas
Informal Science Education Association
National Science Foundation
