The Urban High
School Collaborative
Several
informal science institutions have established school-to-work programs for the communities they
serve. The Urban High School Collaborative at the Museum of Science in Boston offers students an
opportunity to gain authentic work experiences through a paid internship program. Funded in part
by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund through the Association of Science Technology
Centers, the collaborative has an impressive track record of meeting the
academic and vocational needs of students from two area high schools. In the last six years,
several hundred students from low-income areas have successfully participated in the program.
According to program manager Lynn Baum, the museum staff have worked hard to
develop an academically demanding program that offers real work experiences. "Right now
we work with about three classes from two high schools during the academic year. Students come
in weekly and work with museum staff in labs and classrooms and can basically access all the
resources of the
museum. Staff carefully coordinate activities with the highschool curriculum. As part of
the program, students are required to do a minimum of 50 hours volunteer work at the museum.
At the end of the school year, those students who have successfully completed the program and
fulfilled the volunteer requirement can apply for paid summer internships."
Students must go through a rigorous application and interview process to be considered for
an internship. In the spring the museum holds a job fair, where museum program directors who
need interns meet with students to discuss the available jobs. Baum stresses that these are
real jobs in the museum. "Students don’t spend the summer stuffing envelopes or
photocopying. They work in the Live Animal Center, the Sun Lab, the exhibit halls, or out
in the field at libraries and
community centers and events."
Once selected for an internship, students work four days a week with their program and
one day a week as a team, developing skills and exploring other career and education
opportunities. Baum says that Team Day, as it is called, is a crucial part of the internship
program. "We realized it wasn’t enough to get students into a position; we had to
support them in other ways, too. "Team day can involve visiting a college campus, touring
another museum with a similar program, or participating in a resume writing workshop and other
activities that prepare students for the world of work.
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Learning By Doing
Alan J.
Friedman, director of the New York Hall of Science, makes a strong case that experiential
learning is often the best way for students and teachers to learn complex ideas. A growing
body of research also supports this belief. In a recent interview, Dr. Friedman elaborated
on this idea.
"One of my favorite things in our science playground is called the Standing Spinner.
It’s basically an angular momentum demonstration in the form of a merry-go-round for one.
You stand on it and grab a pole in the center. When you push off with one foot, you go spinning
around the vertical axis. If you pull yourself in toward the axis, you speed up. If you let your
arms straighten out and lean away, you slow down. The most amazing thing is that if you then pull
your arms back in, you speed up once again. Somehow you’ve recovered your lost rotary
speed."
"Now, the conservation of angular momentum is a crucial concept. It’s one of the
fundamental conservation laws of physics. And it relates to everything from the spinning of
the earth to the spinning of atoms, galaxies, and perhaps the universe as a whole. So it’s
a vitally important concept. Even though
I went to good schools, I didn’t have the
foggiest notion what it really meant. I knew
it had something to do with gyroscopes and spinning wheels, but I really didn’t understand
it even though I got an A in physics!"
"I think if I had played on the Standing Spinner for five minutes before memorizing the
equations of angular momentum, I would have understood those equations, and they probably would
have stuck with me a lot longer, instead of my having to relearn them in college and graduate
school."
"If I were a teacher teaching fundamental physics, I would certainly schedule a visit to
the science playground, where there are a half dozen fundamental laws that are expressed in
devices which you operate with your whole body. It’s not so easy to experience these
fundamentals clearly otherwise."
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