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Year Published: 2016
Project GUTS (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically) is an afterschool program in which middle school students design, create and test computer models to simulate “what if” scenarios for real-world questions of community and societal concern. In this selection of evaluation data from the 2010-2011 school year, participants demonstrated gains along three major categories of youth outcomes—interest in STEM, capacity to engage in STEM, and finding value in STEM.
Program Name: Project GUTS
Program Description: Project GUTS (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically) is an afterschool program in which middle school students learn cutting-edge computing methods to solve modern-day problems. Participants design, create and test computer models to simulate “what if” scenarios for real-world questions of community and societal concern.
Scope of the Evaluation: Local
Program Type: Afterschool
Location: Santa Fe, NM
Community Type: Rural, Urban, Suburban
Grade level: Middle School
Program Demographics: 58 percent Hispanic/Latino, 24 percent Caucasian, 2 percent Asian-American, 2 percent Native-American, 1 percent African-American, 13 percent other; 35 percent qualify for federal free or reduced price lunch; 7 percent are Limited English Proficient; 5 percent have special needs or disabilities.
Program Website: http://www.projectguts.org/
Evaluator: Kaminsky Consulting
Evaluation Methods: Outcomes are measured using student demographic and attendance data, pre- and post-surveys of knowledge, skills and self-efficacy. Additionally, information is collected on teacher participation in professional development, growth and self-efficacy of teachers, and partnerships developed.
Evaluation Type: Non-experimental
Outcomes:
Below is a selection of evaluation data reported by the program around three major categories of youth outcomes—interest in STEM, capacity to productively engage in STEM, and finding value in STEM. These outcomes are an excerpt from a 2016 Afterschool Alliance paper, "The Impact of Afterschool STEM: Examples from the Field."
Capacity: I can do this
Value: This is important to me
Associated Evaluation: http://afterschoolalliance.org/documents/AfterschoolSTEMImpacts2016.pdf
Program Profile: View program profile