The after-school activities allow the students more freedom of exploration, and we try to focus these on the “student driven projects” that they identify after walking through their neighborhood and asking how they would like to explore STEM while thinking about how STEM could contribute to their life or their community. Occasionally we see these projects arise from school-day activities that have been taken to the next level. For example students build roller coasters for marbles out of pipe insulation material during the school day to learn about velocity, acceleration and force, but there is a limited time window. One group took this into the after-school to explore much more complex roller coaster designs. But more commonly the student identified projects are distinct and may share only the reuse of some school day materials.

For dissemination of school day curriculum/pd/materials we are in discussion with publishers. We are hoping to find a non-profit or for-profit with a similar vision of integrating these elements. For after-school we are going to try to sustain the elements of the program that train facilitators and perhaps expand this to offer train-the-trainer PD for supporting “student driven projects” for elementary students that others could use to emulate this practice.

I think what Johns Hopkins gets is a deeper understanding of how to be a good partner to our surrounding communities. It also provides an opening for students, mostly graduate students, to engage with the city they live in and be invited into the community. This is very significant, particularly for students coming from far away and other countries. Some undergraduates also engage in this way, but we have found the continuity we require, commitment over the entire academic year from October-June, is hard for undergrads who often disengage from Dec-Jan, depart in May and don’t know their spring schedule in the fall. As a result the undergrads who do engage in visiting SABES sites are usually embedded with graduate student teams. However, we know for the age 9-11 students having continuity of contact with adults is key, and having people show up and then not follow through is hard for them. So we try to minimize that.