Preparing for the 2009 International Year of AstronomyASP Conference Series, Vol. 400, c©2008M. G. Gibbs, J. Barnes, J. G. Manning, and B. Partridge, eds.

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities

Philip J. Sakimoto,1 Velshonna Luckey,2 Randall H. Landsberg,3

Larry Hawkins,4 and Irene Porro5

Abstract. The International Year of Astronomy will attract much atten-tion, but what legacy will it leave for populations historically underrepresentedin science? In this paper, we focus on one such population—urban youths—and ask how IYA activities might be designed to have a lasting impact. Ourgeneral premise is that a major event might be used to attract attention, butthat a long-term follow up is necessary for genuine impact. We present threeafter-school and summer urban outreach programs that model such long-terminvolvement: the KICP Space Explorers Program, the MIT Kavli Youth As-tronomy Apprenticeship Program, and the Notre Dame Supernova Club. Eachof these programs is deeply embedded within the community that it serves, andeach of them shows great success in building interests and capabilities in scienceamong the youths that participate.

1. Introduction

Among the goals of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 is the mandate to“promote greater involvement by underrepresented minorities in scientific andengineering careers.” This is a major challenge. Impacting career choices andcareer successes requires close association with young people over long periodsof time-periods measured in years rather than in days or weeks. High profileshort-term IYA activities can be extremely useful for attracting initial attentionand interest, but they must be coupled with long-term follow-up if the goal oflaunching careers is to be achieved. In this paper, we focus on three examplesof urban science outreach programs that incorporate such long-term follow-up.The programs, developed collectively by the authors, are the MIT Kavli InstituteYouth Astronomy Apprenticeship Program (Porro), the KICP Space ExplorersProgram (Landsberg and Hawkins), and the Notre Dame Supernova Club (Saki-moto and Luckey).

Although these programs each run in different cities with different types ofactivities, the commonalities that we believe make them successful are remark-

1Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA

2Robinson Community Learning Center, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556,USA

3Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

4Office of Special Programs, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

5MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, 77 Massachusetts Avenue—NE80,Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

68

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities 69

able. Each program arose from and is run through partnerships that are firmlyembedded within in the communities that they serve. Each program utilizesout-of-school time, taking advantage of the easy access it gives to large groupsof urban youths. Each program engages the youths over long periods of time,hoping to maintain involvement with the participants through matriculation intocollege. Each program sets high standards for behavior and performance. And,we think, not coincidentally, each program is proving to be highly successful.

2. Making Use of Accumulated Wisdom

The insights that led to these program commonalities are not new. They are wellknown to those who are familiar with successful youth outreach and minorityaccess programs and with effective practices that support learning in out-of-school time.

The benefits of using out-of-school time for education and youth develop-ment are promoted in the work of the National AfterSchool Association1, theeducation policies of the NASA Science Mission Directorate2, and the recentplans for a first-ever National Conference on Science & Technology in Out-of-School Time3. When working with underserved communities in underutilizedsubject areas such as science, the potential benefits of using out-of-school timeare substantial. Working parents want to see their children’s out-of-school timeused effectively, and community leaders perceive the potential career opportu-nities in science and technology. What they need are effective ways to bringscience into community out-of-school settings.

A number of studies have laid out strategies for effective use of out-of-school time when working with youths in urban areas. McLaughlin (2000) sug-gests that successful youth programs are Youth-centered, Knowledge-centered,Assessment-centered, and Community-centered. Benson and Saito (2000) viewthe term youth development as connoting “a focus on supporting or promoting,during the second decade of life, the positive developmental processes that areknown or assumed to advance health and well-being.” These processes, theynote, “include such multidimensional domains as competence, mastery, positiveidentity, resilience, caring, connection and belonging.” The Building Engineer-ing and Science Talent Initiative (BEST 2004) has found that best practicesinclude having clearly defined outcome goals; being persistent in the face ofsetbacks; personalizing activities through student-centered teaching and hon-oring individual differences; incorporating challenging content that relates tocareer opportunities; and having adults who are fully engaged in multiple rolesas teachers, coaches, mentors, tutors, and counselors.

In short, effective out-of-school time programs follow the belief that the ex-periences a person has within a learning environment need to be viewed withinthe larger context of the person’s total life experience and learning. When we fo-

1http://www.naaweb.org

2http://nasascience.nasa.gov/researchers

3http://www.scienceafterschoolconference.org

70 Sakimoto et al.

cus on astronomy and informal science education, we must move beyond contentarea knowledge and skill acquisition. We must support individuals holistically,incorporating science into the totality of their development toward becomingresponsible, contributing adults. And, as other studies remind us (Jolly, Camp-bell, & Pearlman 2004; National Research Council 2008), we must incorporate“continuity”—the act of sustaining student interest over time—into our pro-grams.

3. The MIT Kavli Youth Astronomy Apprenticeship Program

The Youth Astronomy Apprenticeship (YAA) is an out-of-school time initiativeto foster science learning among urban teenage youth and their communities.The goal of YAA is to broaden the awareness of science learning as an effec-tive way of promoting overall youth development and of providing competitiveprofessional opportunities. YAA staff first develop partnerships with profession-als at community-based centers to create a mutual understanding of goals andexpectations for the program. They then engage high school age youths in anafter-school astronomy-training program. After the training is completed, thesuccessful participants become astronomy apprentices who work with educatorsand other professionals to create astronomy outreach initiatives directed at theirown communities. Through the youths’ work and their presence among theircommunities as science ambassadors, YAA aims to promote involvement andsupport for science learning among underrepresented communities. YAA is acollaboration of the MIT Kavli Institute (MKI), the Smithsonian AstrophysicalObservatory (SAO), the Timothy Smith Network (TSN), and the Institute ofLearning Innovation (ILI).

3.1. Core Idea

YAA is based on two key understandings:

1. For science learning to have a lasting impact on the life of a teenage youth,it has to be personally meaningful: it has to be integrated with the youth’spersonal development process. From this point of view, YAA seeks to em-power teens to develop new science understanding along with the personaland interpersonal skills needed to fully participate in the life of our society.

2. For populations historically underrepresented in science, it is importantto foster an environment that supports the pursuit of STEM learning andSTEM careers. To do so, YAA reaches out to the families of participantsand also to the local urban communities to which the YAA teens belong.Indeed, through the community outreach work of the youths involved inYAA, we aim to engage all YAA audiences (families, other teens, andcommunity-based organizations) in science learning experiences, and wehope that they will eventually become advocates for new STEM learninginitiatives in their communities.

Youths begin their association with YAA through an after-school compo-nent. After successfully completing this component, they become eligible to

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities 71

attend the summer apprenticeship program at MIT that is the core element ofthe YAA model. In the summer program, the youths work on astronomy con-tent, train in a variety of other disciplines, and develop original activities to beperformed at community outreach events. In summer 2007, YAA teens wroteand produced a play on the life cycles of stars, designed activities introducinglay audiences to the use of the telescope, and created three components for aprofessional museum exhibit on black holes. In summer 2008, they will workon a new play, and they will create planetarium shows that they will present atvarious venues using a portable planetarium. In addition, they will create theirown advertising campaign to promote their community outreach events and torecruit new youths for the next year’s YAA after-school program.

3.2. Science learning integrated with positive youth development

The YAA summer program is a real apprenticeship in that actual professionalstrain and work with the YAA youths. Here are a few examples. Last year,YAA started a very effective collaboration with a local theater company, theUnderground Railway Theater (URT). URT mentors work not only with YAAyouths involved in the science theater project, but also with the whole YAAgroup. They help the youths practice public speaking skills, gain confidence incommunicating to large audiences, and learn story-telling skills. Last summer,the youths working on the Black Hole museum exhibit met several times withthe staff of Jeff Kennedy Associates. The professionals not only showed them the“behind the scenes” world of a museum exhibit, but they also introduced themto the organizational and planning skills required to put together an initiativelike a museum exhibit. This year, YAA youth will work with a professional fromthe field of marketing and advertising to learn some of the foundations of theadvertising profession as a prelude to creating their own advertising campaign.To do so, YAA youths will need to learn how to clearly identify their audience,how to present their product, how to communicate their message, and howto organize their work to produce an effective campaign. By weaving sciencelearning together with the practical aspects of a range of professions, the youthsdevelop a specific sense of ownership of their work that, in turn, makes themparticularly attentive to the science content they are communicating.

3.3. Youth as agents of change

By the end of the summer apprenticeship, YAA youths are ready to performtheir presentations and/or activities at various venues in their communities.The main players in these events are urban teenagers. As such they are ableto communicate to their peers and to adults in their communities a much moreeffective message about the value of science literacy than can be offered by thetraditional science outreach establishment.

Some of youths are also willing to take a major role in the YAA programitself. After completing the summer apprenticeship, they are eligible to apply forpaid positions with MKI as youth assistants for the YAA after-school programs.In our experience this has been the most important and rewarding phase of thewhole YAA program. With additional training and mentorship by YAA staff, theyouths gradually feel empowered to share their learning about and passion forscience with their peers. As they grow in these roles, they realize the challenge

72 Sakimoto et al.

Figure 1. A YAA apprentice explains his black hole model to visitors atthe Cambridge Science Festival 2008.

involved in facilitating somebody else’s learning experience. But, at the sametime, they experience the rewarding feeling of helping others to move forward.With surprise, they may find themselves being identified as role models (“I wantto be like you” a YAA assistant was told by one of his class mates). These youngambassadors of science prove with their own experience—and the benefits theygain from it—that following one’s personal interest in science outside of theclassroom is actually “OK,” and that it can be a rewarding and exhilaratingexperience. Our youth assistants are now part of the YAA team, coming backfor a second summer. They are planning to engage in more advanced projectsand to take on more teaching responsibilities next year. It is not a large groupof teens, but we understand now that to promote real change among youth fromunderrepresented communities, our education and mentoring effort has to workdeep and last long.

4. The KICP Space Explorers Program

The Space Explorers Program is a long-lived collaboration at the University ofChicago between a community partner, the Office of Special Programs (OSP),and an academic group, the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics that usesastronomy as a hook to engage urban youth in long-term science enrichment pro-gramming. The programming involves over 100 contact hours each year and theparticipants, typically 30 local middle and high school students, remain in the

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities 73

Figure 2. Children operate a robotic telescope over the Internet under theguidance of a YAA apprentice.

program for multiple years. Founded in 1991, this partnership has endured forover 17 years. It is highly successful for the students—graduates matriculate incollege as science majors at a rate that is five times better than that predictedby combined national and Chicago Public Schools statistics—and it helps par-ticipating scientists improve their communications skills. The program specificsand its outcomes are described in greater detail below. However, it is informativeto first examine the partnership that makes this program work.

4.1. The Partnership

A critical factor in the success of this program is that is it grounded in a genuinecollaboration. Working together, OSP and the Department of Astronomy &Astrophysics4 via the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP) are ableto create a program that is much more powerful than either could produceindividually. OSP has deep roots in the community and is the conduit to thestudents and their families. OSP staff are in the schools, at community meetings,in churches, and on the athletic fields casting a broad net to find students whomight be interested in science enrichment programs but who might not normally

4From its inception the Space Explorers program has been under the auspicious of the Depart-ment of Astronomy & Astrophysics, however it was initially a part of the Center for Astro-physical Research in Antarctica, CARA, and since 2001 the program has become a signatureprogram of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP).

74 Sakimoto et al.

Figure 3. KICP Space Explorers measure the Cosmic Microwave Back-ground (CMB) radiation as the culmination of a year-long investigation intotemperature.

gravitate to them. OSP’s philosophy is holistic, focusing on the full person:behavior, commitment, study habits, etc. OSP’s long standing in the communityalso helps engage the students’ families, a critical element of the Space ExplorersProgram. The Department and KICP provide many resources including theuse of undergraduate science laboratories on campus and the historic YerksObservatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin; a staff member devoted full time toeducation and outreach; and significant financial support through grants. Moreimportantly, KICP provides the scientific personalities and expertise that cannotbe found in a typical K–12 setting. Since 2001, more than 45 researchers havetaught in residence at the Yerkes Institutes, with many of them doing so multipletimes. Both partners obviously gain from participating in this collaboration,but more importantly both sides recognize the contribution of the other, trustthe other, and regularly communicate with the other. This strong workingrelationship has proven critical to the program and helped to create continuityas well as longevity.

4.2. Space Explorers Program Overview

The Space Explorers Program connects local, underrepresented minority stu-dents with the university astronomy research community. Participant selectionis based on interest and commitment rather than abilities, and astronomy is atopic to which students seem naturally attracted. This inherent interest is easyto leverage into broader scientific investigations (e.g., recycling) that, in turn,help to maintain student involvement. By immersing students in the process

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities 75

of doing science, we hope to increase their interests and abilities in science andmath and help them succeed in high school and beyond.5

The Space Explorers Program seeks to profoundly change the lives of innercity youth and to inspire them to pursue scientific careers. This is achieved byengaging the students in multi-year, multidimensional commitments. Studentsparticipate in weekly hands-on, in-depth laboratory sessions, residential scienceinstitutes at Yerkes Observatory, visits to research labs, and enrichment fieldtrips, including monthly visits to the Adler Planetarium. Occasionally olderstudents are placed as interns in research laboratories. Perhaps more importantthan the science content that these experiences offer are the relationships withresearchers that develop and the thought processes the students see modeled.

Figure 4. Students and Instructors at the KCIP Yerkes Summer Institute.

5For more details on the Space Explorers Program and an archive of activities see http://kicp.uchicago.edu/education/explorers.

76 Sakimoto et al.

4.3. Outcomes and Comparisons

In the six years since 2001, when KICP made Space Explorers a signature pro-gram, all 50 students in the six cohorts finishing the program have graduatedfrom high school and gone on to college. More than half of them are majoringin a science, math, engineering, or technology (SMET) field, and ten percent ofthem are majoring in a physical science. Of the fourteen Space Explorer alumniwho graduated high school in 2002 and 2003, nine (64%) have graduated fromcollege, seven (50%) have obtained SMET degrees, one (7%) has obtained aPhysical Science degree, and seven (50%) have enrolled in graduate programsof which four (57%) are SMET programs. This is a sharp contrast to the normfor students in the Chicago Public School System, where only six percent of thestudents beginning high school get a college degree by their mid-20’s, and onlythree percent of African-American and Latino male high school freshmen obtaina bachelor’s degree by the time they’re 25 (Roderick et al. 2006; Cohen & Little2006). It is also far above the national statistics for African Americans, of whomonly 2.7 percent obtain degrees in the Natural Sciences or Engineering by thetime they are 24 (National Science Board 2002).

The outcomes for the participating researchers are harder to quantify. Self-reporting indicates improved teaching and communication skills. Interestingly,anecdotal evidence suggests that skills acquired working with the Space Explor-ers translated especially well into delivering successful big picture job talks.

5. The Notre Dame Supernova Club

The University of Notre Dame’s Supernova Club is a fledgling experiment basedon the hypothesis that in every community, no matter how “disadvantaged,” acertain fraction of youths will show strong interests in and aptitudes for scienceif only they are given a chance. The target audience is youths living in themost economically depressed areas of South Bend, Indiana. Almost all of theparticipants are from below poverty-level families and are eligible for free lunch.Most of them are underrepresented minorities. The basic idea was to embedscience in an existing large community program serving this population, and,from that initial exposure, to recruit a small cohort of youths for a long-term,year-round follow-up program in astronomy. After only one year, their progresshas been spectacular. We attempt to describe here the ingredients that led tothis success.

5.1. Origins in Community Needs

The Supernova Club arose from a community crisis. Cuts in Federal fundingwere threatening the future of the long-standing National Youth Sports Program(NYSP). At the University of Notre Dame, NYSP had been bringing hundredsof 10 to 16 year-old youths from low-income neighborhoods to campus eachsummer for an extended day camp focused on health, nutrition, physical fitness,and basic academic support. In community meetings on how to restructure thelocal program, the idea arose to take this as an opportunity to raise the program’ssights. The program’s ultimate goal should be to see that at least some of the

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities 77

participants are capable of being admitted to and succeeding at a highly selectiveuniversity like Notre Dame.

We envisioned using the summer as a time to purposefully expose hundredsof program participants to a wide variety of possible new interest areas—a dif-ferent one each year. Astronomy, with its potentially broad appeal, was pickedas the focus area for a first pilot year. During the summer we would do ac-tivities that would expose all participants to astronomy. We would use theseactivities as a means of surfacing participants with strong interests in and highpotential for science. We would then put those participants in a year-roundfollow-up program aimed at developing and nurturing their interests and capa-bilities. We would seek NASA space science EPO funding to support the scienceactivities and, not incidentally, help bring solely needed new financial resourcesto the overall program. Since several NASA research grants for which EPO sup-plements could be proposed were readily available, and since all three of thesegrants happened to deal with some aspect of supernovae, we decided to focusthe astronomy activities on supernovae and the life cycles of stars. Thus, theSupernova Club was born.

5.2. Embedded Science

From a science educator’s point of view, the advantage of working with NYSP isthat it provided a proven structure for all of the program logistics. Recruitment,transportation, food, discipline, schedules, space, communications with families,crisis intervention, and a wealth of other details were handled entirely the ex-isting NYSP staff. From the NYSP Director’s point of view, the arrangementbrought science into the program without the need to find additional funding orto train staff in how to teach science. It was a definite win-win situation, but itwas not without problems.

For the scientist, dealing with students who were, in general, not interested,not present by choice, and not accustomed to science or inquiry-based activi-ties was a major challenge. Having seasoned NYSP staff and teachers in theroom at all times was a major help. For NYSP, accustomed to making con-stant on-the-fly adjustments in response to unpredictable student and familyneeds, accommodating the needs of science activities for regular attendance andpredictable scheduling was a major challenge. Patience and perseverance wasrequired of all concerned.

The science itself was not new. Highly regarded activities from readilyavailable sources (Fraknoi 1995; Universe! 2003) were adopted and adapted tothis situation. In rotating sessions, each group of students received six contacthours of a basic orientation to the solar system and stars and an introduction tostellar life cycles. What was new was using specially tailored live presentationsin Notre Dame’s Digital Visualization Theater (DVT) for some of this instruc-tion. Participants generally regarded presentations in the DVT as “cool,” buttheir attentiveness was still poor. However, despite appearances to the contrary,something significant was happening. Pre- and post-tests showed that over thesummer, overall interests in and understanding of science increased by about20 percent. However, interest in actually being a scientist decreased by 16 per-cent. Prophetically, the external evaluator noted that “this entrenched attitude

78 Sakimoto et al.

Figure 5. Supernova Club members show off their cardboard tube telescopes.

[against being a scientist] may take more than one summer to change” (Coshow2007).

5.3. Nurturing Future Scientists

The biggest impact of the summer program came when, at its close, we askedthe participants if they would like to apply to be part of an on going, after-school astronomy club. Some 20 percent of them said they would like to join—apercentage that we suspect is not much different than what you would get froma random sample of youths in any community in America. Also in accord withwhat one typically finds nationwide, those who wanted to participate were allrelatively young (ages 9 to 12). None of the older students (ages 14 to 16) wantedto participate. After applying filters for genuine interest, parental support, andcommitment to regular attendance, 13 of applicants were made charter membersof the Supernova Club.

For the school year program, a new partnership was formed. Notre Dame’sRobinson Community Learning Center, conveniently located within the commu-nity, agreed to provide space in their building, handle all logistics, and, mostimportantly, assign their Associate Director of Children’s Programs to serve asthe lead in-house manager. The importance of having a seasoned youth programdirector with strong ties to the community cannot be overemphasized. Althoughher official duties were administration and logistics, her experience and instincts

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities 79

told her to add in youth development. She gave frequent mini-sermons on awide variety of life issues, talked regularly with the parents, and made sure thatthe students understood that they were getting a once in a lifetime opportunity.

We held frequent Family Nights, purposefully choosing speakers who wouldhelp raise the participants’ level of comfort with science. An African Americantheologian, minister, and Notre Dame Dean talked about African Americans inscience. An African American undergraduate summer physics student sharedher contagious enthusiasm for physics. Unspoken fears that “people who looklike me don’t do science” evaporated without ever being directly addressed.

Figure 6. The life cycles of stars were the central theme for Supernova Clubactivities.

Experienced science teachers from local community schools were recruited tohelp out. Their presence was necessary to help translate activities into terms thatthe youths could grasp. An effective pattern soon emerged. At each meeting,the scientist would introduce and motivate the activity in the context of thebroader picture of astronomy, a teacher would lead students through the hands-on portion of the activity, and then the scientist would lead a summing updiscussion that connected the hands-on activity to the real astronomical objects.Open question and answer sessions between club members and the scientistinvariably erupted and were often the most engaging part of the entire session.

Career development received continual and conscious attention. It was sim-ply assumed that all of the participants would get doctoral degrees in science. So,everything they heard was in the language of “when you go to graduate school,”

80 Sakimoto et al.

or “after you get your doctorate.” The word “if” was never breathed. All scien-tists who interacted with the participants were purposefully addressed formallyas “Dr. ,” keeping the idea of doctoral degrees in everyone’s minds. Theunheralded perks of being a scientist were also revealed. Hearing about fullypaid opportunities in graduate school, comfortable pay as a professional scien-tist, and opportunities to travel around the world were all eye-openers for Clubmembers

The science activities mostly followed the Afterschool Universe (see Krish-namurthi et al., in this volume, or http://universe.nasa.gov/au/). Fieldtrips to the Notre Dame DVT, the Notre Dame Nuclear Structures Laboratory,and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago were also incorporated. By years’ endthere were noticeable gains in understanding and interest in science, but therewas still a need for greater retention, depth of understanding, and ability to syn-thesize knowledge. These are points to be addressed in future years. For now,the important point is that the Club members’ overall behavior and interestin learning at Club meetings, at school, and at home all improved remarkably.Attendance at meetings was nearly 100 percent, and attrition over the course ofthe year was zero. The number of Club members (responding to surveys) whowant to be scientists went from 2 out of 10 at the beginning of summer to 10out of 11 at year’s end. A fertile ground for more in-depth science activities insubsequent years has clearly been laid.

6. Putting It All Together

Together, the outreach programs described here tell a remarkable story. It ispossible to generate interest and engagement in science within even the mostdisadvantaged communities, and it is possible to launch underrepresented mi-norities into success in SMET fields at the college level. The ingredients fordoing so are relatively simple: maintaining long-term contact with participants,integrating science with broader activities of interest; including purposeful wholelife development; relying on community leaders for access, logistics, and com-munications; including families; using out-of-school time; and, above all, havingand maintaining high expectations for success. What is difficult is taking thetime to assemble all of these ingredients in one place, and to sustain them overtime.

Acknowledgments. We are pleased to acknowledge the following sourcesof support for the outreach programs discussed here. MIT Kavli Institute YouthAstronomy Apprenticeship Program: NSF Grant 0610350 (Informal Science Ed-ucation). Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics Space Explorers Program:NSF grants PHY-0114422 and PHY-0551142 (Physics Frontier Centers). NotreDame Supernova Club: NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute, AURA grantHST-EO-10934.03-A (Hubble Space Telescope Cycle 15 EPO Supplements). Wegratefully acknowledge the many parents, community leaders, scientists, andyouth participants who have contributed immensely to the success of these pro-grams.

Building an IYA Legacy for Underserved Communities 81

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