Breakfast Club Blog
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!
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Your Summer on Mars – Afterschool Enrichment
Ah, summer! A time for exploration, inspiration, and in afterschool – enrichment. Especially after this last challenging year, kids and leaders alike are in need of refreshing, inspiring things to learn and experience. Why not spend the summer on Mars, at least virtually? With temperatures heating up around the country, thinking about Mars may help cool you down. In Martian summers, the surface temperature can occasionally be what we’d call “comfortable” here on Earth, but on the same night can ...Read More
Why is it so important for girls to see women in STEM Careers?
I began this year with a big change, I started a new job that focuses on increasing gender equity in STEM. This got me thinking about why it is so important for girls to see women in STEM and how critical role models are to helping girls consider STEM activities and careers. Representation matters and encouraging girls from all backgrounds to pursue STEM starts with showing them they can, showing them what a female scientist looks like. It’s critical that girls see a diversity of STEM role model...Read More
Celebrate the Next Landing on Mars!
You’re invited to join the celebration of the landing of Mars Perseverance Rover on February 18, 2021. Participate in the “Mars Student Challenge” with hands-on STEM enrichment activities for the weeks leading up to the landing that can be done by students at home using everyday materials (such as Make a Cardboard Rover), activities that can be done as virtual demonstrations (such as Make a Moon Crater – Perseverance will be landing in Jezero Crater), and fun short videos that explain key ...Read More
Bringing at-home STEM success into focus
STEM has left the building For a long time, advocates of STEM education have worked to bring STEM learning closer to students’ lives outside of school. This year, though, COVID has made STEM learning a part of students’ lives outside of school in ways nobody ever imagined or wanted. The pandemic has forcibly ejected STEM from the traditional in-building school environment and strewn it about in a great blurry mess spread out variably and amorphously among the home, Zoom sessions, mask-, distance...Read More
At-home Learning in Crisis Times (with the Cat in the Hat)
Largely at a loss Nobody has any very good answers amid the anxiety and trauma of these COVID-19 times. But efforts to help, share, and encourage each other have overflowed in online education communities, to the benefit of educators, students, and families. Floods of ideas and resources have come from countless individuals and organizations to help the millions of families whose households have suddenly become classrooms. Please, for example, go get a free download of our coloring book, What’s ...Read More
A Step Beyond –Youth Team Up And Advance Their Curiosity for Space
Kids are naturally curious, wondering about everything around them, and growing in their journey of figuring out life. Each youth comes into an afterschool program with a unique background and experience – and that is reflected in their own story, perspective, and skills. In afterschool, kids can have experiences where they are guided to deepen their curiosity, develop open communication, make careful and thoughtful observations of the world around them, and learn to work with others as a team. ...Read More
Build Your Kids’ “Moonshot-ability”!
Creative thinking. Bold imagination. Tenacity. Rising to a challenge. Innovation. Know-how. Skills we work on building in kids in afterschool, right? It’s also what it took to put together an amazing feat that made history, when on July 20, 1969, humans first landed and set foot on the surface of the Moon. President John F. Kennedy announced to the world NASA’s “Moonshot” challenge in May of 1961. NASA answered the challenge with a series of missions to the Moon, each making more progress toward...Read More
Making: A Different Approach!
Remember those classes in school called Auto Mechanics, Woodshop, and Home Economics? During my high school years, these “vocational” classes were popular with kids who enjoyed building, creating, or simply doing things with their hands. Unfortunately, these classes in many areas of the country were phased out as schools placed more emphasis on core subject areas. Today, these classes are making a big reboot splash through a movement called Making. What is the Maker Movement and why should busy ...Read More
Super Moon 2019!
“Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon: you will be surprised how often you get it.” These words of Paulo Coelho are certainly what we want our kids to hear and feel – to reach beyond and become the best person they can be. And we want to be there to help give them opportunities to reach their full potential. The Moon serves as a source of inspiration – influencing aspiring poets, writers, musicians, artists, scientists, explorers, traditional knowledge-keepers in cultures such as Native...Read More
Traveling, Speaking And Collaborating For Future Education Equity: A Report From The Road
This blog is being republished with permission from TGR Foundation. It was originally posted on November 1st, 2018. —————————————————————————————————————————————————– October presented me with multi...Read More
How to Start the Afterschool Engineering Club You’ve Always Wanted
For all the popularity of STEM activities outside of school time, engineering remains something of a neglected stepchild. “Full STEM Ahead,” an America After 3 PM survey, found that the favored siblings in the STEM family, science and math, feature in a preponderance of available programs, 60 and 45 percent, respectively. Technology and engineering share the table scraps, named in less than a third of program offerings. And with the greater share of these programs focused on computing and progra...Read More