"You Can't Be What You Can't See" presents a rare longitudinal account of the benefits of a high-quality, out-of-school program on the life trajectories of hundreds of poor, African American youth who grew up in Chicago's notorious Cabrini-Green housing project in the 1980s and early '90s. The result of a five-year research project by…

Experiment is at the heart of science and this was a consideration in the planning of an Association for Science Education (ASE) conference in the summer term that could be guided, but not controlled, by experience from the Annual Conference at New Year. Different formats for the exhibitions, lectures and practical presentations could all be tried…

Since 2012, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has supported educational enrichment in rural areas by awarding over $3.3 million in grants to six outstanding organizations operating in Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In this report, the authors combine the experiences of these organizations with findings from the…

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has provided over $3.3 million in grants to outstanding providers of educational enrichment in rural areas since 2012. In extensive interviews, rural education experts in our grantee organizations shared their practical knowledge of the best ways to identify academically talented students in rural areas, provide…

The integration of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) serves to develop creative thinking and twenty-first-century skills in the classroom (Maeda 2012). Learning through STEAM promotes novelty, innovation, ingenuity, and task-specific purposefulness to solve real-world problems--all aspects that define creativity. Lisa…

Both employer expectations and education standards, including the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, are shifting the focus of learning from knowledge and discrete skills to the ability to think critically and creatively. This paper describes the process of translating an existing teacher-led STEM curriculum to fit…

Exposing American K-12 students to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) content is a national initiative. Game Design Through Mentoring and Collaboration targets students from underserved communities and uses their interest in video games as a way to introduce science, technology, engineering, and math topics. This article describes a…

This article presents an interview with Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, director of the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University and a professor in the School of Education and Social Policy. She earned her bachelor's degree in elementary education from St. Xavier University in Chicago and her master's and doctorate degrees from…

Early college schools are part of a national initiative to align high school and college through a rigorous, college-prep curriculum coupled with high expectations and comprehensive student supports. The schools provide all students with direct experience, preparation, and support in taking college classes through a proficiency-based curriculum…

As part of the "Ready to Learn" Initiative, Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), was charged with addressing the evaluation of Technological Enhancements for the outreach efforts of three producers: Out of the Blue's Super WHY! Technology Add-On; Sesame Workshop's The Electric Company School's Initiative Curriculum; and WordWorld's…

In the summer of 2006, Open Borders Project/Proyecto Sin Fronteras, a small educational center in the heart of Latino North Philadelphia, sponsored a six-week program to teach teens from Philadelphia public schools how to plan and conduct interviews, edit audio files, and write the necessary preparatory material to produce short pieces about…

The Exploratorium is home to XTech, a science education program which began in 2006 and was primarily funded by a three-year National Science Foundation grant (Award # 05-25217) through its ITEST (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) initiative. XTech provided project-based afterschool activities in science, engineering,…

At a writers' camp, teachers and children collaboratively write and learn together during the summer. Through student writing samples, this article shows how teachers and students apply journalistic techniques of observing, note-taking, and interviewing to collect information about their local community. Teachers and children taking part in the…

Site leaders at the Southern Arizona Writing Project needed to increase their pool of summer institute applicants, so they created a plan to recruit early. They invited interested teachers, principals, and district administrators to attend their "Slice of SAWP" on the last day of the summer institute. The site sent out acceptance letters…

Learning what interests college-admissions committees drew this Homestead High School junior and 18 other teenagers to a 10-day College Admission Prep Camp run by Education Unlimited (EU) on the campus of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts last July 2005. The program is among many such camps offered across the country this summer, by both…