Academy for Educational Development

The Educational Equity Center at the Academy for Educational Development (EEC/AED) has received five-year funding from the National Science Foundation to develop Great Science for Girls: Extension Services for Gender Equity in Science through After-School Programs (GSG Extension Services).










GSG Extension Services will use 21st Century on-line technologies in combination with professional development and customized consulting services to create a unified program of change around girls, STEM and afterschool.











The goal of Great Science for Girls is to broaden and sustain girls' interest and persistence in STEM education, through participation in inquiry-based informal science learning. To this end, GSG Extension Services will build the capacity of afterschool centers to deliver evidence-based programming.











GSG Extension Services will consist of:
1) four-day regional professional development institutes,
2) on-site consulting services,
3) a virtual support system of technical assistance, training, resources, and research, and
4) a handbook of best practices. Partners for this project are two AED Centers that have worked extensively in the afterschool field: the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research (CYD) and the National Training Institute for Community Youth Work (NTI).












To deliver GSG Extension Services efficiently across three large sections of the country, EEC/AED will affiliate with 12 regional intermediary organizations--four in the North East, four in the Midwest, and four in the Far West. During the five-year project period, these intermediaries will have the potential to impact hundreds of afterschool centers, thousands of youth workers, and hundreds of thousands of girls.











Given the large number of underrepresented low and moderate-income urban youth who attend after-school programs, girls reached by Extension Services will be from the population that has traditionally been most excluded from the STEM pipeline.












Integral to this project will be EEC/AED's Science, Gender and Afterschool On-Line Community of Practice, funded by NSF. The Community of Practice (COP) will serve as an online virtual support system for program implementation, and an important follow-up tool to the regional professional development institutes and on-site consultations.













In addition, the COP will provide ongoing, cutting-edge information and services to a national client base, and act as a continuous link between researchers and practitioners.