eleven years ago a teacher in Chicago
Public Schools changed my career I was
working at Northwestern organizing
science outreach activities the way that
scientists often do giving short talks
and entertaining students in a
northwestern research lab near the end
of one of these visits I pulled the
teacher aside and I asked a very simple
question did this visit really make a
difference of course right away he said
yes but when I pressed him for an honest
answer he opened up he told me it
doesn’t make a difference in the way
that you hope really making a difference
means providing kids with role models
with mentors and with long-term
experiences that build skills kids are
super excited to come to Northwestern
but inspiration only takes you so far
when my kids get back to their community
not much has changed this was a message
I was not fully prepared to hear but
upon reflection and it was a very short
reflection the teacher was a hundred
percent right a two-hour spark in a
northwestern research lab wasn’t nearly
enough I knew very little about the
challenges that youth and families face
every day in their neighborhoods I was
the one who needed to make a change I
had a big problem though in my 10 years
of formal training as a chemist as a
biochemist there was literally nothing
they would equip me to be a community
focused science educator so for me it
was time to go back to school or in this
case to the Boys and Girls Clubs of
Chicago 11 years ago we were having
plenty of internal conversations about
what more we could do to improve the
outcomes of the young people of our city
you see the Boys and Girls Club Chicago
isn’t just an after-school program the
clubs are life-saving life-changing and
provide lifelong lessons that go far
beyond our doors each year we inspire
more than 18,000 young people to dream
big about their future but one of the
things that’s core to our mission is
cultivating a sense of belonging as
members as learners as
and sometimes it’s a lot easier to build
that sense of belonging within the walls
of our club than it is to help our young
people find that sense of belonging out
in the world so 11 years ago we were
stymied by our lack of resources and
quite frankly by our lack of expertise
in certain academic areas we were
thinking about stem but we needed a
partner so that phone call from Mike was
heaven-sent I’m not even sure scientists
believe in those types of things but it
sure feels like that’s me looking back
on it today the feeling was mutual
not long after I connected with the
club’s elementary teachers from a local
school joined our group
they brought educational experience and
a direct connection to classroom
together we started a journey one of the
first questions that we had to answer
was on which age group would we focus
newly published research at the time was
indicating that students interest in
science declines precipitously during
the middle school years grades 5 through
8
however if students graduate from eighth
grade with a sense of belonging in
science the odds are two to three times
higher that they will end up working in
a science related career we know from
research and years of working with young
people that a sense of belonging has a
particularly dramatic effect on student
achievement oftentimes the young people
that are in our programs don’t feel like
they belong in certain education spaces
or even in certain career fields
altogether we see that in the scientific
workforce and other professions as well
thus creating a sense of belonging in
science became our first program goal
our second goal was driven by teachers
as educational experts they were in the
best position to tell us what was what
wasn’t working and where there was
opportunity what they shared was that
curricula of the day were extremely
content-heavy
without enough emphasis on the actual
practice of science designing
experiments analyzing data thinking
critically and working collaboratively
this was a space in which Northwestern
was ideally positioned to help we have
lots of science students and staff who
could work long-term with kids
to mentor to build these skills but
again there was an issue the same
training problem that I had also faced
all of our students in fact more than
40% of scientists are not engaged in
their communities two of the top reasons
no training and not being sure how to
get involved we will never achieve our
goals of equity in science education and
a diverse scientific workforce unless we
can remove these barriers so training
our scientists mentors was our third
goal the beauty of the partnership that
formed was that all of our skills were
complementary and synergistic we were
creating an educational ecosystem where
each one of us played a critical role
the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago
knows youth development in the
after-school space and teachers know
students instructional needs and can
coach scientists and how to build
curriculum and north-western of course
has a scientific workforce and a really
strong interest in creating exponential
learning experiences for its students
our final question was what to call this
skill and mentor based program so we
asked the kids they said it’s science
and they said it’s at a Boys & Girls
when you put all the pieces together you
get something that looks like this five
cub is a amazing program that teaches me
about science that I go to every week
after school at the McCormick boys and
girls club my mentors are Jen and Sarah
and it’s really cool because they’re
[Music]
science club means almost everything to
me
because it helps me out in different
ways even outside of science club
because I take the things I learned from
science club into my everyday life and
what all scientistic science club a
[Music]
science club inspired me to do is to
work harder my scope has inspired me to
do more science outside school science
Gomez inspired me to be creative science
club has definitely helped prepare me
for college science could help me get a
three hundred eighty thousand dollar
scholarship to the lad school Chicago
because of science club I want to become
a biomedical engineer I want to become a
doctor when I grow up I want to be a
veterinarian I want to be a neurosurgeon
I have a science club member
[Music]
science clubs educational model is
deceptively simple it’s to scientists
mentors working with four kids as a
collaborative team each week throughout
the academic year for 90 minutes often
more they dig deep into skill building
authentic challenges engineering clean
water solutions or unlocking medical
mysteries each science club session
takes place in a laboratory that we
built at each of our Boys and Girls Club
sites these are real labs our mentors
tell me that they could even do some of
their research in these spaces
having laboratories in a boys and girls
club setting a place that kids call
their second home is an incredibly
powerful driver of identity and of
belonging this spring is our 10th year
of science club over the last decade
we’ve worked with over 500 kids and 220
mentors we’re proud in so many ways
particularly of the deep impact that our
external evaluators see in the data
analysis of our program however creating
identity and a sense of belonging in
science club begins with one simple
metric our kids showing up the way our
clubs are designed kids vote with their
feet but I can tell you the kids of
science club are excited to be there and
the average time of participation our
program is approaching nearly two full
years when you see science club in
action you can immediately tell that the
kids and the mentors feel like they
belong our hope was that a stronger
sense of belonging for the kids would
translate into stronger science skills
in collaboration with our teachers and
our external evaluators we devised
interview based skills assessments we’ve
given these assessments to more than six
hundred kids science club in control and
our data analyses are rigorous they
account for entering student aptitude
across the range gender age even school
attended the results are pretty dramatic
what we’re seeing is large skill
increases across the aptitude range kids
who came to us struggling and
science once they’ve been with us for a
year perform as middle achieving
students do our middle achieving science
clubbers move into the high category and
our high achieving science clubbers
perform as if there’s an extra extra
high category science club is a program
that works for all students equally this
impact is also long-term well beyond
eighth grade graduation many of the kids
in the program stay connected to their
club staff to their teachers and to
their mentors all through high school
and even into college
science club is also expanding the types
of careers and majors that our young
people are choosing at our Peterson
McCormick Club the interest in STEM
careers has grown exponentially 10 years
ago only a tiny fraction of our
graduating kids we’re choosing stem
today well over 30% of the kids that are
graduating high school today are
entering into stem career paths
well these outcomes are fantastic one of
the things that’s really important is to
understand that science club isn’t about
turning kids into scientists it’s about
giving them the skills to problem-solve
and investigate these critical thinking
skills work for all kids all the time
and so when we think about science club
we know that it’s going to be something
that any one of our kids can use for any
path that they might be on we’d like to
share a couple of examples this is Laura
she’s stuck in a science club a little
bit early as a 4th grader and was with
us for 5 years her interest in science
wasn’t consistent though in fact about
midway through she took a quarter off
what she tells me brought her back to
science club was our sense of community
and the idea that learning how to figure
things out
was actually pretty useful in high
school her interest in science grew she
hung around science club a lot she
volunteered with the younger kids she
brought homework in she stayed connected
as a junior in high school she received
a summer internship here at Northwestern
in the material science department doing
research and I’m happy to report that
just this week she finished her freshman
year at the University of Michigan on a
full-ride scholarship studying
engineering this is sandy who you saw
earlier in the video
sandy joined science club in 7th grade
her family’s from Vietnam and she’s
first-generation American now with Sandy
one of the things that’s really
important to understand about her is
that all of the science club family our
club staff the mentors her teachers all
worked with her mom to help her figure
out the high stakes decisions around
where she’d go to high school and
eventually college I’m happy to report
that sandy is now on a full-ride
scholarship out in Occidental College in
Los Angeles studying public policy sandy
says although I don’t intend to major in
stem the skills and tools I learned in
science club are invaluable science club
helped me see my own brilliance and
helped push me toward my goals seeing
our science club kids now adults realize
their career aspirations is incredibly
rewarding but what about those
scientists we set out to train well here
I’m happy to report that our outcomes
are equally impressive to those of our
kids scientists who are part of science
club learned a variety of career and
community relevant skills these are
skills that aren’t traditionally taught
as part of scientific training
this is tamekia she was a postdoctoral
fellow in our chemistry department and a
science club mentor for four years she’s
now an assistant professor at Dillard
University in New Orleans working to
start a science club of her own even as
a busy assistant professor she’s setting
aside time in her day to connect with
community and teachers to build a
program that meets their needs in total
there are more than a hundred and fifty
scientists now across the country
putting these skills to work in their
communities in areas such as academia
industry and even our federal government
working to promote evidence-based
not only a science club changing our
kids and our mentors it’s changing and
transforming our organization this is
the cover or latest annual reports an
organization that may erroneously be
seen as just a gym and swim is now
thinking about science first all of our
clubs those with labs and those without
see themselves as hubs of science
activity this is something that was
unheard of just a decade ago
what started as three partners has now
developed into a network of 10 entities
working across Evanston Chicago three
universities supplying mentors and even
industry and what started as a cold call
to the Boys and Girls Club volunteer
hotline has developed into a network of
more than 50 professionals across youth
development education higher ed science
you name it all of us United in a common
belief that belonging in science matters
the power of this journey is that
science club isn’t just science centric
we’re teaching young people the skills
that they need and it can translate to
any major and help a kid along any path
we invite all of you know we challenge
you get connected don’t be afraid to ask
your partners the difficult questions
and be prepared for difficult answers I
certainly wasn’t expecting the answer I
received 11 years ago but look where
it’s led in my 25 years of youth
development I can honestly tell you
we’ve never built a program like science
club before and it’s the relationships
between our organization between the
kids and their mentors between our staff
and the volunteers that make it all
happen each and every one of us has an
opportunity to build deep responsive
partnerships in neighborhoods all across
the nation because helping our country’s
youth is a space where each and every one of us belong thank you
Public Schools changed my career I was
working at Northwestern organizing
science outreach activities the way that
scientists often do giving short talks
and entertaining students in a
northwestern research lab near the end
of one of these visits I pulled the
teacher aside and I asked a very simple
question did this visit really make a
difference of course right away he said
yes but when I pressed him for an honest
answer he opened up he told me it
doesn’t make a difference in the way
that you hope really making a difference
means providing kids with role models
with mentors and with long-term
experiences that build skills kids are
super excited to come to Northwestern
but inspiration only takes you so far
when my kids get back to their community
not much has changed this was a message
I was not fully prepared to hear but
upon reflection and it was a very short
reflection the teacher was a hundred
percent right a two-hour spark in a
northwestern research lab wasn’t nearly
enough I knew very little about the
challenges that youth and families face
every day in their neighborhoods I was
the one who needed to make a change I
had a big problem though in my 10 years
of formal training as a chemist as a
biochemist there was literally nothing
they would equip me to be a community
focused science educator so for me it
was time to go back to school or in this
case to the Boys and Girls Clubs of
Chicago 11 years ago we were having
plenty of internal conversations about
what more we could do to improve the
outcomes of the young people of our city
you see the Boys and Girls Club Chicago
isn’t just an after-school program the
clubs are life-saving life-changing and
provide lifelong lessons that go far
beyond our doors each year we inspire
more than 18,000 young people to dream
big about their future but one of the
things that’s core to our mission is
cultivating a sense of belonging as
members as learners as
and sometimes it’s a lot easier to build
that sense of belonging within the walls
of our club than it is to help our young
people find that sense of belonging out
in the world so 11 years ago we were
stymied by our lack of resources and
quite frankly by our lack of expertise
in certain academic areas we were
thinking about stem but we needed a
partner so that phone call from Mike was
heaven-sent I’m not even sure scientists
believe in those types of things but it
sure feels like that’s me looking back
on it today the feeling was mutual
not long after I connected with the
club’s elementary teachers from a local
school joined our group
they brought educational experience and
a direct connection to classroom
together we started a journey one of the
first questions that we had to answer
was on which age group would we focus
newly published research at the time was
indicating that students interest in
science declines precipitously during
the middle school years grades 5 through
8
however if students graduate from eighth
grade with a sense of belonging in
science the odds are two to three times
higher that they will end up working in
a science related career we know from
research and years of working with young
people that a sense of belonging has a
particularly dramatic effect on student
achievement oftentimes the young people
that are in our programs don’t feel like
they belong in certain education spaces
or even in certain career fields
altogether we see that in the scientific
workforce and other professions as well
thus creating a sense of belonging in
science became our first program goal
our second goal was driven by teachers
as educational experts they were in the
best position to tell us what was what
wasn’t working and where there was
opportunity what they shared was that
curricula of the day were extremely
content-heavy
without enough emphasis on the actual
practice of science designing
experiments analyzing data thinking
critically and working collaboratively
this was a space in which Northwestern
was ideally positioned to help we have
lots of science students and staff who
could work long-term with kids
to mentor to build these skills but
again there was an issue the same
training problem that I had also faced
all of our students in fact more than
40% of scientists are not engaged in
their communities two of the top reasons
no training and not being sure how to
get involved we will never achieve our
goals of equity in science education and
a diverse scientific workforce unless we
can remove these barriers so training
our scientists mentors was our third
goal the beauty of the partnership that
formed was that all of our skills were
complementary and synergistic we were
creating an educational ecosystem where
each one of us played a critical role
the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago
knows youth development in the
after-school space and teachers know
students instructional needs and can
coach scientists and how to build
curriculum and north-western of course
has a scientific workforce and a really
strong interest in creating exponential
learning experiences for its students
our final question was what to call this
skill and mentor based program so we
asked the kids they said it’s science
and they said it’s at a Boys & Girls
when you put all the pieces together you
get something that looks like this five
cub is a amazing program that teaches me
about science that I go to every week
after school at the McCormick boys and
girls club my mentors are Jen and Sarah
and it’s really cool because they’re
[Music]
science club means almost everything to
me
because it helps me out in different
ways even outside of science club
because I take the things I learned from
science club into my everyday life and
what all scientistic science club a
[Music]
science club inspired me to do is to
work harder my scope has inspired me to
do more science outside school science
Gomez inspired me to be creative science
club has definitely helped prepare me
for college science could help me get a
three hundred eighty thousand dollar
scholarship to the lad school Chicago
because of science club I want to become
a biomedical engineer I want to become a
doctor when I grow up I want to be a
veterinarian I want to be a neurosurgeon
I have a science club member
[Music]
science clubs educational model is
deceptively simple it’s to scientists
mentors working with four kids as a
collaborative team each week throughout
the academic year for 90 minutes often
more they dig deep into skill building
authentic challenges engineering clean
water solutions or unlocking medical
mysteries each science club session
takes place in a laboratory that we
built at each of our Boys and Girls Club
sites these are real labs our mentors
tell me that they could even do some of
their research in these spaces
having laboratories in a boys and girls
club setting a place that kids call
their second home is an incredibly
powerful driver of identity and of
belonging this spring is our 10th year
of science club over the last decade
we’ve worked with over 500 kids and 220
mentors we’re proud in so many ways
particularly of the deep impact that our
external evaluators see in the data
analysis of our program however creating
identity and a sense of belonging in
science club begins with one simple
metric our kids showing up the way our
clubs are designed kids vote with their
feet but I can tell you the kids of
science club are excited to be there and
the average time of participation our
program is approaching nearly two full
years when you see science club in
action you can immediately tell that the
kids and the mentors feel like they
belong our hope was that a stronger
sense of belonging for the kids would
translate into stronger science skills
in collaboration with our teachers and
our external evaluators we devised
interview based skills assessments we’ve
given these assessments to more than six
hundred kids science club in control and
our data analyses are rigorous they
account for entering student aptitude
across the range gender age even school
attended the results are pretty dramatic
what we’re seeing is large skill
increases across the aptitude range kids
who came to us struggling and
science once they’ve been with us for a
year perform as middle achieving
students do our middle achieving science
clubbers move into the high category and
our high achieving science clubbers
perform as if there’s an extra extra
high category science club is a program
that works for all students equally this
impact is also long-term well beyond
eighth grade graduation many of the kids
in the program stay connected to their
club staff to their teachers and to
their mentors all through high school
and even into college
science club is also expanding the types
of careers and majors that our young
people are choosing at our Peterson
McCormick Club the interest in STEM
careers has grown exponentially 10 years
ago only a tiny fraction of our
graduating kids we’re choosing stem
today well over 30% of the kids that are
graduating high school today are
entering into stem career paths
well these outcomes are fantastic one of
the things that’s really important is to
understand that science club isn’t about
turning kids into scientists it’s about
giving them the skills to problem-solve
and investigate these critical thinking
skills work for all kids all the time
and so when we think about science club
we know that it’s going to be something
that any one of our kids can use for any
path that they might be on we’d like to
share a couple of examples this is Laura
she’s stuck in a science club a little
bit early as a 4th grader and was with
us for 5 years her interest in science
wasn’t consistent though in fact about
midway through she took a quarter off
what she tells me brought her back to
science club was our sense of community
and the idea that learning how to figure
things out
was actually pretty useful in high
school her interest in science grew she
hung around science club a lot she
volunteered with the younger kids she
brought homework in she stayed connected
as a junior in high school she received
a summer internship here at Northwestern
in the material science department doing
research and I’m happy to report that
just this week she finished her freshman
year at the University of Michigan on a
full-ride scholarship studying
engineering this is sandy who you saw
earlier in the video
sandy joined science club in 7th grade
her family’s from Vietnam and she’s
first-generation American now with Sandy
one of the things that’s really
important to understand about her is
that all of the science club family our
club staff the mentors her teachers all
worked with her mom to help her figure
out the high stakes decisions around
where she’d go to high school and
eventually college I’m happy to report
that sandy is now on a full-ride
scholarship out in Occidental College in
Los Angeles studying public policy sandy
says although I don’t intend to major in
stem the skills and tools I learned in
science club are invaluable science club
helped me see my own brilliance and
helped push me toward my goals seeing
our science club kids now adults realize
their career aspirations is incredibly
rewarding but what about those
scientists we set out to train well here
I’m happy to report that our outcomes
are equally impressive to those of our
kids scientists who are part of science
club learned a variety of career and
community relevant skills these are
skills that aren’t traditionally taught
as part of scientific training
this is tamekia she was a postdoctoral
fellow in our chemistry department and a
science club mentor for four years she’s
now an assistant professor at Dillard
University in New Orleans working to
start a science club of her own even as
a busy assistant professor she’s setting
aside time in her day to connect with
community and teachers to build a
program that meets their needs in total
there are more than a hundred and fifty
scientists now across the country
putting these skills to work in their
communities in areas such as academia
industry and even our federal government
working to promote evidence-based
not only a science club changing our
kids and our mentors it’s changing and
transforming our organization this is
the cover or latest annual reports an
organization that may erroneously be
seen as just a gym and swim is now
thinking about science first all of our
clubs those with labs and those without
see themselves as hubs of science
activity this is something that was
unheard of just a decade ago
what started as three partners has now
developed into a network of 10 entities
working across Evanston Chicago three
universities supplying mentors and even
industry and what started as a cold call
to the Boys and Girls Club volunteer
hotline has developed into a network of
more than 50 professionals across youth
development education higher ed science
you name it all of us United in a common
belief that belonging in science matters
the power of this journey is that
science club isn’t just science centric
we’re teaching young people the skills
that they need and it can translate to
any major and help a kid along any path
we invite all of you know we challenge
you get connected don’t be afraid to ask
your partners the difficult questions
and be prepared for difficult answers I
certainly wasn’t expecting the answer I
received 11 years ago but look where
it’s led in my 25 years of youth
development I can honestly tell you
we’ve never built a program like science
club before and it’s the relationships
between our organization between the
kids and their mentors between our staff
and the volunteers that make it all
happen each and every one of us has an
opportunity to build deep responsive
partnerships in neighborhoods all across
the nation because helping our country’s
youth is a space where each and every one of us belong thank you
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