Building Effective Community Partnerships for Science After School Part II: Finding STEM Resources in Your Community

This is the second part in a two-part series on Building Effective Community Partnerships for Science After School, a workshop we recently hosted at the Up Your Game conference. Read Part I on Including Science Volunteers in Afterschool Programs for more information.

In the second half of our workshop on partnerships for afterschool science, our panel of speakers focused on finding and using community resources. Our first speaker, Leslie Lowes, is an informal education specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NASA has a great many resources available for supporting informal science education (as well as lots of resources for in-school learning), and Leslie helped us navigate where to find them.

NASA has a number of education centers around the country--if you live nearby, contact your center to find out about the availability of public tours. The education centers may also have a representative available from NASA's Speakers Bureau (a great way to find scientists with public communication skills!) or a chapter of the Solar System Ambassadors program, a national program of volunteers that specialize in JPL's work.

NASA also offers customizable curriculum just for out-of-school learning. For elementary school students, the Out of School to Outer Space program offers 15 hours of NASA/solar system science and engineering activities, including teacher training and ongoing support. This program is designed to get 4th and 5th graders "thinking like a scientist." The Space School Musical program, featuring downloadable videos, songs, and a guide to putting on a space-themed musical production, gets kids excited about STEM through song and dance.

For middle school students, NASA focuses on developing science skills through programs like the Summer of Innovation. Programs for high school students are geared toward research and preparation for STEM careers through internships and innovation challenges, like the Real World In World engineering challenge.

Not everyone is close to a NASA center, but many people have a museum or science center in their community. Katie Levedahl, Director of Out-of-School Programs for the California Academy of Sciences joined the panel to talk about how to partner with science centers and museums to bring STEM content to afterschool environments. Katie highlighted the Careers in Science (CiS) program, a multi-year internship program for high school students. CiS interns, along with an Academy scientist, bring science activities to afterschool programs in their communities. Because the interns often come from the communities they visit, they become role models for the afterschool program students. Because museum workers are science content experts, they can be great sources of high-quality STEM activities. Katie talked about other ways that afterschool programs can partner with science museums, including:

• Using the museum as a field trip site
• Connecting with older youth programs (like CiS) to find science mentors for afterschool youth
• Obtaining curriculum and activities from museums, or bringing museum scientist-educators into your program to facilitate activities

For the last presentation, I spoke about the many different resources available through the Coalition for Science After School. In particular, I highlighted our members and the National After School Science Directory as being great places to find local partnerships or connect with programs outside of your immediate area. I also highlighted our Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter pages as being great places to connect with resources, funding streams, events, professional development opportunities, research, and more. These tools are free and easily customizable to your needs.

For the final half hour of the workshop, we engaged in networking and a white-board brainstorming session to identify what individual programs actually need to facilitate STEM partnerships. We ended with a productive conversation on goals and next steps for the workshop participants.

For more information about the workshop--as well a starter kit for getting STEM in your afterschool program--visit Gabrielle Lyon's post on the Project Exploration blog.

Many thanks again to our wonderful speakers and engaged participants, and a special thank you to the California AfterSchool Network and Time Warner Cable for helping to make this workshop a reality.

Science Museums and Centers

Did you know that over 75 science museums and public science centers from across the country count themselves as members of the Coalition for Science After School? In addition to hosting field trips and workshops for visiting P-12 classrooms, museums and public science centers offer a wide range of camps, classes, clubs, interactive exhibits, and programs. And more research is showing that informal learning spaces like museums give essential contributions to Americans' science knowledge.

Here are some museum and science center highlights from the Directory:

• Overnight Adventure at the ETSU Natural History Museum and Gray Fossil Site Patch in Gray, TN 
• Spend a night a the museum with your class, church, scout, or family group! The focus of this camp-in will correspond with the Museum's newest Temporary Exhibit. Activities begin early Saturday evening after the Museum closes and resume again the following morning. A typical camp-in begins at 5:30pm and includes activity stations, a film/video in the classroom, science demos and workshops, snacks and breakfast. Natural History Museum and Gray Fossil Site Patch will be awarded upon completion of program. Award ceremony following breakfast. Program ends at 8:30am.

• BioDECIDE at the Miami Science Museum Center for Interactive Learning in Miami, FL
• Biomedicine Deliberative Citizens Debate (BioDECIDE) engages underserved high school students in discussion, debate and on-line research related to some of the most cutting-edge, controversial, and personally relevant topics in biomedicine today. The project annually serves over fifty low-income, first-generation college-bound youth participating in the Miami Science Museum's ongoing Upward Bound (UB) program. BioDECIDE supplements content delivered through the regular UB program, involving students in the development and testing of activities themed around current health issues related to infectious diseases/HIV, mental health, cancer, environmental health, and physical fitness.

• Cave Overnight at the Cincinnati Museum Center in Cincinnati, OH 
• This popular overnight program is designed to provide visitors with an in-depth study of the longest man made caves. All of CMCs limestone and ice caves will be explored, animals will be introduced, games will be played, and art will be made. You will enjoy the OMNIMAX film, Journey into Amazing Caves, the next morning. The cost is $28 per camper and per chaperone. 

• EVOLUTIONS After School Program at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, CT 
• What Is EVOLUTIONS? It's a club for students interested in science, serious about school and headed to college. It's a place where you'll learn how to make yourself competitive for college, explore what you want to do with your life and make a bunch of great friends from other schools -- students as serious as you are. It's an opportunity to get paid as an intern in a Yale professor's lab and work at the Peabody Museum teaching exhibits to visitors.

• 2011 Summer Camp from the Chicago Academy of Science Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago, IL  
• Fun-filled camps connect children to the wonders of nature through a unique combination of art, music, movement, hands-on science activities, and live animal encounters led by Nature Museum staff. Camps include family open houses the last Thursday evening of each session. Camp fees include a camp t-shirt and healthy daily snack(s). More t-shirts can be purchased prior to camp for $10 each. Campers must turn minimum age of camp before start of session.

Beat the Back-to-School Blues with Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day

With Labor Day weekend just a few hours away as of this writing, the summer is officially coming to a close. Many museums and science centers experience low visitation during these early school months, since teachers rarely plan field trips so early in the school year.

During the summer, museums and science centers provide lots of services (not to mention air-conditioning) to vacationing families, summer campers, and parents and students who want to beat the summer "brain drain." But in September, the focus switches to classroom and homework time. 

Low visitation means less crowds and more time spent with exciting exhibits, making September a great time to visit museums after school and on the weekends. Maybe that's why Smithsonian Magazine is having Museum Day on September 25th! Print out the admission ticket on their website and visit a participating museum near you (we love science museums, of course, but there are lots of art museums, natural history museums, and children's museums participating).

Check it out at the Smithsonian Magazine website !

Are you looking for an amazing opportunity to promote your science and technology programs?

The Coalition for Science After School recently opened a national directory of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning opportunities. This directory will be widely marketed and can rapidly increase the visibility of your program! The best news? There is no cost involved, it is FREE! There is, however, a cost to not participating: missed promotional, funding, and partnership opportunities.

Sign up now!

Are you interested in increasing the number of kids participating in your programs?
The promotion of this Directory will increase interest in opportunities to participate in science after school and in other informal settings, and it will direct interested parents and students to the programs entered in our database.

Are your programs full? Do you need support - funding, volunteers, partners - to open up your programs to more students?
Our Coalition is committed to working with policymakers and funders and will ensure that the Directory is used for increased advocacy in support of informal science education.
All that is needed to become part of the Directory is to visit our website:

Sign up now!

Spend a few moments entering information on your organization and its programs and events. If you have any questions about the Directory, the Coalition, or informal STEM education, please contact our team at info@directory.scienceafterschool.org.

I would like to thank you in advance for your participation. The larger we are able to grow this database the more effective the Directory will become! If you know of any colleagues who might be interested in taking advantage of this opportunity, please feel free to forward this message along.

Science Center Business Models

For those in the museum business, there is an interesting discussion at ExhibiTricks about the recent closing of COSI Toledo. The fact that this hand-on science center, a branch of on an existing successful center in Columbus, OH, was not able to sustain itself presents an interesting case study. I posted a long response to the story, but the short version is - science needs to be where the kids are first. We should be reaching them in their schools, community centers, and even at home.

Cyberchase at the NY Hall

If you live in New York and have kids, you may want to take them to the NY Hall of Science in Queens this weekend. The stars of the WNET-produced PBS animated series Cyberchase will be there.

If you aren't going to the event, you may still be interested. It is an example of good collaboration between museum and media to engage and educate young people in science and math.