Jessica's blog

Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been over six weeks with our group. We've had the addition of 9 new kids in the last two weeks. We caught most of them up on building the ecocolumns, however we still had two new kids today, so the curriculum has to be adjusted every day/week. 

We wrapped up the first week at Gateway Homeless Services today. We began teaching late last week so we've had some extra time to get to know our group. It's a small group of kids who are coming but they are having a blast. We've built our terrariums already and once we get the supplies we'll be moving forward with the aquarium piece of our ecocolumns. There's been some adjustments to the curriculum based on the ages of the regular participants and we've already learned valuable lessons about classroom management and self control. I'm really proud of this group of teens. They went into a situation with which most of them were unfamiliar, and have been able to handle themselves like mature young men and women. They're also developing relationships with the youth who come to class. One of the most important things I've noticed so far is how hard they are working to make sure they support each other as a team. During our daily debriefing sessions they always point out what good things they saw each other doing and offer teaching tips to each other for areas of improvement. Go team!

I'm pretty excited about this summer's program! I've got a group of really strong, dedicated teens who I think are going to make a real impact on the youth we're working with off site this summer. We're going to be teaching Ecosystems, intergrating Math and Literacy into our curriculum via After School Math Plus and Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading. Meghan (she's my coworker at the site) will be working on a research project with the teens and the youth at the site revolving around pollution and its enviornmental effects in neighborhoods. In related news...I was recognized by a young student in public the other day for being "one of those Science Center people" who taught at a particular school last summer. Our program must really be making impressions. :)

It might not make staff picture of the week (Cindy!) but this week I was volunteered to be "arrested" for a fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I was picked up in the Taylor lobby in a car by a fireman, handcuffed, dressed in stripes, and hauled off to the Hill where I had to try and make bail! They took pity on me and drove me back here ( in a limo!!)  after serving some time. Thank you to everyone who helped me to raise money for the youth in St. Louis!

I think I look good in black and white!! :)

This is Nicholas. My supervisors are Jessica and Missy. I was doing the investigation on the caracal cat, a team builder, and a follow up converrsation on the instigation I was doing.

In today's lab the teens updated each other on where they are in the development of their investigations. Each group reviewed their process and their challenges with the other smaller groups in order to figure out what their strengths and weakness areas were. I feel like it gave some groups a chance to collaborate with the others, and feel connected to the larger idea of group processing. However, we did discover that some groups are going to have a harder time in developing their questions to be something that visitors can interact with.

 The MyTracs teens from the Saint Louis Public Library started three wikis to assist the teens in researching their various topics. Crazy about Caracals, Arch-itecture, and Space within Space. The YES teens used some of their information and resource suggestions, but found that the website isn't compatible with dialogue between the teen groups so they emailed the Director of the program with their questions and comments.

 As the semester winds down we are going to keep working diligently on creating questions we can investigate, and creating a station where teens can involve visitors in more than a poster presentation.

My investigation is about the St. Louis Arch. My group and I are investigating how the arch is made and what kind of weather conditions the arch can stand up against.