Science

What We Do

Kids are natural experimenters and inventors. Hands-on science is among their favorite after-school activities, from cooking to gardening to engineering bridges out of toothpicks. After-school, with its informal atmosphere and looser time constraints, is the perfect venue for science discovery. As kids dig into real-life science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), concepts learned in class are reinforced.

	Contact Info: For more information about TASC's science programs, contact Sunset Harris at (646) 943-8771.

This school year TASC is offering six varieties of STEM curriculum to New York City programs. Programs can choose the set of activities that best suit their kids’ interests and needs. Then we train the staff members– most of whom don’t have science backgrounds – to confidently lead STEM activities. As they teach science inquiry, they demonstrate that anyone can be a scientist.

Why We Do It

	Why Do Science After School?

Expanding kids’ science, technology, engineering and math opportunities is a national imperative. Some 80 percent of future jobs will require a STEM background. Right now, American high school students are among the lowest-performing science scholars internationally. Girls and kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately ill-prepared to pursue STEM college majors or careers.

When a middle school student expresses an interest in science, that’s a better predictor of a STEM career than achieving high grades.

How We Do It

As a founding partner in the Coalition for Science After School (CSAS), we develop strategies, along with our partners in this national alliance of organizations, to change the culture and provide kids with more high quality STEM learning experiences. Working with New York City after-school programs, we create replicable models for incorporating science into after-school time, and training the diverse after-school workforce to confidently lead science activities.

TASC is offering these curricula to programs in the 2009-2010 school year:

• After-School Science Plus (Grades K-8)
• After-School Conservation Club (Grades 3 – 6)
• 4-H Wonderwise (Grades 3-7)
• NASA – The Planetary Neighborhood (Grades 3 – 5)
• Mixing in Math (Grades K – 7)
• TASC Tech After School (Grades 2 – 10)

TASC is grateful to the International Year of Astronomy for providing Galileoscope telescope assembly kits for use in New York City after-school programs.