High-quality afterschool and summer learning programs are effective ways to support children and teens and accelerate their academic growth. In fact, the American Rescue Plan prioritized a significant amount of funding for out-of-school time programs because of the evidence of their effectiveness. Over the past few years, state educational…

From its inception, the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary has been committed to the education of gifted students. Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska, founder of the CFGE, created a learning environment to work directly with gifted students and parents by providing diverse university-based pre-collegiate programs in both residential and…

Background: In response to the effort to increase minority enrollment in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, STEM summer bridge programs were created to help minorities with the transition from high school to college with the long-term goal of increasing the diversity of professionals in STEM. The goal of this…

Many talented students in under-resourced schools do not reach their full potential. Research shows that by sixth grade, children born into poverty have likely spent 6,000 fewer hours learning than their middle-class counterparts. Higher Achievement, an intensive summer and after-school program, aims to close that learning gap. It offers…

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program, funded through the U.S. Department of Education, provides academic enrichment opportunities outside of the regular school day to help students meet state and local performance standards in core academic subjects, such as reading and math. This report summarizes the 2019-2020…

This study employed qualitative methods to explore how the "UVA in Valencia Summer Program 2019/2021" approached instructional practices (e.g., in-class and out-of-class immersive learning activities, homestays, pre-program services, including use of L2 and culture learning strategies) to identify those features of the program design…

Youth are natural scientists at birth, discovering and exploring their world and trying to make sense of it (Bers, 2008). A child's education is not limited to just the time they spend in the classroom. Children learn at home with their families, in public libraries, or through out-of-school-time (OST) experiences provided at community centers and…

Exploring Summer Youth Employment Programs: Increasing Access Through Career Pathways builds the case and provides actionable recommendations for state-led support in the intentional alignment of summer youth employment programs (SYEP) with career pathways and the work-based learning continuum, including through Career Technical Education (CTE).…

This paper presents the first results from draw-a-scientist tests (DASTs) over five years that were used to measure the effect of 8-10 week long astronomy clubs and week long summer camps on 3rd-5th grade elementary school students' perceptions of scientists. We facilitated these DASTs prior to these clubs or camps, which provide a baseline for a…

Diabetes is one of the largest global epidemics, necessitating training for a new generation of scientists and physicians to work on the disease. Undergraduate research experiences can build an educational pipeline for talent in these professions. A NIH-sponsored summer diabetes research internship at the University of Virginia provided…

The FNS Research Corner provides a continuing series to summarize recently completed and current research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the area of child nutrition. Summaries of recently completed research projects and in-progress research are provided in this article.

In conjunction with local middle schools, the Make to Learn Lab in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia offered a two-week Summer Engineering Academy for students who completed an introductory engineering course during the previous school year. In that course, students worked with circuits and advanced…

New computer science standards are being rapidly introduced at the elementary level but little is known about how to prepare teachers to learn and teach the content of these standards, or how to support students with disabilities in learning computer science. Accordingly, we designed and studied the Inclusive Computer Science Model of Professional…

This article reports on Year 2 of a three-year project to assess historic site-based teacher professional development programs. The intended focus was assessing pre-post Q-sorts and interviews of 29 teachers regarding how they see their work at historic sites affecting their professional development. However, data analysis revealed exceptionally…

University of Virginia, like many other universities, has developed a chemistry outreach program (called Chemistry Learning through Experimentation, Awareness, and Demonstration; i.e., Chemistry LEAD) that visits K-5 schools and teaches inquiry-based chemistry lessons in order to engage local students with science. Chemistry LEAD is graduate…