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Year Published: 2016
Science Club is a partnership between Northwestern University and the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago, utilizing long-term mentoring relationships to engage low-income urban youth in science. In this selection of evaluation data from the 2013-2014 school year, participants demonstrated gains along three major categories of youth outcomes—interest in STEM, capacity to engage in STEM, and finding value in STEM.
Program Name: Science Club
Program Description: Science Club is a partnership between Northwestern University and the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago, utilizing long-term mentoring relationships to engage low-income urban youth in science. Every week, Northwestern graduate students lead small groups of students through designing and running hands-on science experiments.
Scope of the Evaluation: Local
Program Type: Afterschool
Location: Chicago, IL
Community Type: Urban
Grade level: Elementary School, Middle School
Program Demographics: 40 percent Asian-American/Pacific Islander, 33 percent African-American, 22 percent Hispanic/Latino; 5 percent Caucasian; 97 percent qualify for federal free or reduced price lunch; 35 percent are Limited English Proficient; 15 percent have special needs or disabilities.
Program Website: https://scienceclub.northwestern.edu/
Evaluator: Rockman et al and the Garibay Group
Evaluation Methods: Using a case-control methodology, Science Club measures changes in youth skills with a scenario-based skills interview and science fair scores. Youth attendance, interviews and surveys are also collected. Mentors participate in focus groups and self-report on changes in communication and teaching skills as well as attitudes toward science outreach.
Evaluation Type: Quasi-experimental;Non-experimental
Outcomes:
Below is a selection of evaluation data reported by the program around three major categories of youth outcomes—interest in STEM, capacity to productively engage in STEM, and finding value in STEM. These outcomes are an excerpt from a 2016 Afterschool Alliance paper, "The Impact of Afterschool STEM: Examples from the Field."
Capacity: I can do this
Value: This is important to me
Associated Evaluation: http://afterschoolalliance.org/documents/AfterschoolSTEMImpacts2016.pdf
Program Profile: View program profile