Northern Illinois University
STEM Interest and Engagement (STEM IE)

Creating a product

Creating a product was the activity that was most associated with positive youth experience. Therefore, ALs should consider incorporating opportunities for youth to create a product. In making these plans, it is a good idea to start with the focus of the ISL program and reviewing the topics, concepts, and skills that are the learning targets of the program. Then brainstorm individually or with other ALs to generate a list of what products youth might create to learn about and apply their new knowledge and skills. It is advisable to include participants in decision making about the project (see the Youth Agency section) at either or both the planning and implementation phases. See the Being Prepared section that appears subsequently for guidelines on how to plan to create a product. Youth often enjoy presenting their products when they have completed them and taking them home when possible.

Several STEM IE video clips feature staff and camp participants talking about and working on creating products.

NIU EA Automata

This clip shows campers building an automata. The project is connected to the goals of the camp (learning about engineering in the context of an amusement park) and allows for them to make choices, problem-solve, learn about gears, and make something that is related to one of their interests. Notice how seriously youth talk about their automata. 

NIU Taft Polage

The purpose of this video is to show a STEAM (incorporates art with STEM) activity in a summer camp for middle school students. Youth learned about and created a polage. Because polage is a little known art form, the woman who developed polage explains it at the beginning of the clip. The remaining footage shows a science lesson pertaining to the physics of light, with a few examples of the art created by the young adolescents in the program. 

Botanic Individual Student Projects

This clip shows a central activity of the Science First Program. It captures important features of the program’s quality. As the ALs and participants describe their individual projects, several key research findings are emphasized, including the finding that creating a product is interesting to young people.

DIVAS Value

Although this clip pertains primarily to the relevance of what youth are learning, it is also about the opportunity they have to make things. Youth are deeply engaged in creating products at this ISL “maker” camp.

There are numerous books and website devoted to describing STEM projects that youth can do. Some of those projects involve creating products. Two sources are especially good examples. Many of the “hands-on science” projects from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago involve creating a product. ALs can select a subject, a category (lesson plan/activity), and a grade-level range at the NASA educational resources webpage. An especially useful page on this website has projects that involve creating products.

Basic skills

Some out-of-school programs are charged with supporting youth academically. A number of the youth in the programs we studied were referred to the programs to bolster their academic performance. The youth did perceive themselves as learning during the time that they were working on basic skills. ALs can strive to make the most of time spent on basic skills in the informal contexts by embedding practice in games or physical activities, having youth work in pairs or small groups, or giving youth options about how they will practice a skill. ALs also might want to consider adding some challenge to activities.

This clip demonstrates how ALs can embed mathematics and science in physical activities. In addition to showing the relevance the ALs fostered, the clip shows (from 2:22 to 2:48) how practicing mathematics facts are incorporated into an outdoor physical activity. This practice is likely to be much more appealing to young adolescents than working on worksheet pages in a classroom setting.

Field trip speakers

The finding that youth reported listening to field trip speakers the most relevant activity suggests that ALs should strive to provide that experience. Planning field trips and finding speakers takes time and usually requires considerable lead time to arrange. Developing a list of agencies, parks, museums, colleges, and businesses in the community and looking for expertise related to topics studied in the program can be beneficial. A list of places to find speakers in a community can be found on the E-TEAMS webpage.

Field trips can be expensive, but careful planning can reduce the costs. Transportation costs are often the most expensive part of a field trip. It might be possible for a speaker to come to a place outside of but within walking distance from the space in which program activities are held. For example, a county forest ranger might meet youth at a nearby park, or a speaker could present in a school or other public facility auditorium.

The suggestions in this section are based on the reasons that so much learning time is lost and on how ALs that we observed minimized this loss. With some planning and good habits, a great deal of time can be recaptured.

Transitions

A considerable amount of time is lost during transitions from one place to the next or between activities. It is important to develop a plan for transitions so that youth are not bored and aimless, which tends to cycle into management issues that take up even more time.

Several of the ALs we observed were prepared with riddles, games, and songs related to the content and used those as youth walked from site to site or as they rode the bus on field trips. The Penn State University Extension provides an excellent webpage with riddles, games, fun facts, and other brief activities titled STEM Minutes: Simple STEM “thinking” challenges to offer during transitions and waiting times. Steve Miller, a mathematics professor at Williams College, developed a webpage with math riddles that could be used during transition times. More science riddles can be found here.

Another AL we observed provided a variant on the game “I Spy” by having participants look for particular things on their walk to the outdoor setting. The program had considerable ecological content, and he might ask them to try and spot a “predator” or “consumer” on their way to a beach activity site. Or, he could ask them how many different insects they could see during their walk. Yet another AL we know in a program with engineering content has youth snap photos of things they see that exemplify concepts they studied while they are walking about a block to the building where they will have lunch.

Youth finish the activities at different times

One AL we talked to had excellent advice about this common situation. Participants knew that if they finished early they could (1) work on their project, (2) read or look at the magazines and books relevant to the topic of the program, which were easily accessible on a counter in the room, or (3) select a review or enrichment worksheet to complete. This becomes routine practice in his program and minimizes lost learning time.

Being prepared

Planning is essential to having activities run smoothly and to using time effectively. A great deal of time is lost if the purpose, materials, and sequence of the activity is not prepared in advance. The National Center for Quality Afterschool Training Toolkit (see the Planning Your Lesson tab) provides excellent resources to aid your planning. A lesson planning template is provided in both PDF and Word formats. The template can be printed to be used in planning individually, with colleagues, or during professional development sessions. A list of questions that help guide completion of the plans also appears on the Planning Your Lesson tab.

Setting up materials in advance is a very important time saver. ALs often have a lot of competing responsibilities. Some programs provide opportunities for “junior counselors” or aides who they recruit from among past participants in the program. That structure accomplishes many things in addition to daily help with setting up and making the program run smoothly.

This clip provides an overview of and information about the Science First Program. One of the teachers talks about having been a youth participant and her continued involvement through the pathway provided by the Botanic Garden (3:00 to 3:20).

This clip shows the purpose, flavor, and unique aspects of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy DIVAS program. The end of the clip (2:11 to 3:35) focuses on the high school mentors of the middle school girls attending the program.

We were surprised by how little time youth spent outdoors in some programs. A number of the programs we studied had a considerable amount of content related to outdoor topics and phenomena. Youth spent relatively more time outdoors in these programs than in those without such content, yet in several of the programs, less time was spent outdoors than might have been.

This clip focuses on learning STEM concepts both in a classroom and during field experiences. Quality summer programs for underrepresented youth tend to have both types of learning experiences and do not connect what is being learned in the classroom to the outdoor/field experiences.