Boroughs Try Out After-School Program

A new program will grant New York City students the chance to enjoy after-school science education beginning in the fall of 2008, thanks to a recent grant from the National Science Foundation.

The NSF awarded $1.14 million to the Salvadori Center, founded in connection with City College that, according to the center’s mission statement, works through schools and after-school programs to help students “unlock the math, science, art, and humanities” all around them. The Salvadori Center will use the grant to implement BRIDGES, a new, science-oriented, after-school program for 8 to 12-year-olds.

The name of the program sums up its intention: BRIDGES stands for Build, Research, Invent, Design, Grow, and Explore through Science. It was created by the Salvadori Center’s executive director, Leonisa Ardizzone. Ardizzone’s goal was to find funding for a program that would have a “STEM”—science, technology, engineering, and math—focus for children to spend their after-school time.

The activities “will give children interesting opportunities to solve problems, use tools skillfully, measure things carefully, make reasonable estimations, calculate accurately, and communicate clearly,” Michael Bettencourt, administrative director for the Salvadori Center, said in an e-mail.

The Salvadori Center will run BRIDGES in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority, which currently operates 163 federally funded after-school programs at community centers across the city. Five of the centers, one in each borough, will house BRIDGES programs during the next school year, including Rutgers Community Center in Manhattan. Over the course of the 5-year grant cycle, 25 total community centers are expected to run BRIDGES programming.

Brettencourt said BRIDGES aims to “remedy” what he calls the “paucity of good science education programs in New York City, both inside and outside the school.”

Many of the children who attend NYCHA’s after-school programs live in the housing projects where the community centers are located. The Salvadori Center hopes to be able to serve “at-risk” children through BRIDGES, whose families can pay $1 each year for after-school education from 2 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.

“We have everything under the sun,” said NYCHA spokesman Howard Marder of the many after-school programs offered throughout the city. BRIDGES is a “natural fit” for NYCHA to join in on, he said.

Salvadori Center educators will work with NYCHA teachers, providing training and curriculum guides. Set-up for BRIDGES will begin this summer, and the program is intended to grow quickly. Plans for satellite programs in nearby cities and a curriculum guide to be distributed around the country are already in place.

alicia.outing@columbiaspectator.com