A project of the Afterschool Alliance.

The Impact of Afterschool STEM: Project GUTS

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."

Interest: I like to do this
  • Among participants, 65 percent strongly believed that Project GUTS made them more excited to do and learn science and technology in school.

Capacity: I can do this

  • The majority of youth (82 percent) persist through the challenging program to successfully complete a working computer model.
  • Using computer models to conduct scientific investigations is a skill that requires following an iterative problem solving process to design, implement, test and debug computer models, and 64 percent of youth agreed they had learned how to successfully do this.
  • Youth reported feeling that they had developed specific programming skills with 46 and 63 percent of youth agreeing or strongly agreeing.

Value: This is important to me

  • Project GUTS participants demonstrate their understanding that STEM relates to everyday life and can be used to study and potentially solve local community problems. When asked how they would investigate a new community issue, 80 percent of Project GUTS participants suggested using computer modeling and simulation.