The curriculum is fairly accessible to all the students. Some of the math equation manipulation was difficult for some students—particularly when we only meet once a week. There was some pretty in depth stuff, that I could have dealt with more if I didn’t have the time constraint. I also had kids who were just eating it all up and could play with the math and were having a ton of fun with it.

The nicest part of the curriculum is that the hands on element made it accessible to all the students even if they couldn’t participate as fully in all the analysis and discussion afterwards.

I took kids with optics projects to our regional science fair. It was tough to come up with inquiry project, but they managed it. They did cool stuff with refraction with liquids and different stuff. They did a good job. I liked the amount of hands on for the kids.

Having everything provided was a big feature—not only because of financial constraints. Just the time required to procure all the things would be an issue. Getting a package in the mail with everything is really huge.

Having a community professional in the program was huge. He often delivered portions of the lessons to my students. He brought resources with him and he was an expert resource when we had a question. Having someone the kids could really tell knew what he was talking about was a great asset to the program.

All levels of students can be challenged by the curriculum. I have some extremely smart kids in the program. I have some other kids who I don’t think are all that much into science, but they came and they had a ton of fun with it.

Jane Van Dam works in a Title 1 school with grades 6 through 8 in Oregon. She conducts an after school program once a week in addition to teaching.