Pilot Learning Projects

In its role as innovator and convener, the Trust also led the creation of several summer learning projects, partnering with renowned local and national organizations to bring exciting, hands-on learning projects and curricula to summer programs. Staff at community-based organizations receive training and materials to enrich the summer learning experience for children and youth. These learning projects are a way to bring the rich resources of Washington, DC, to programs in order to expand the horizons of the children they serve.  The projects include:

• Learning math concepts through building sea-worthy Bevins Boats with the Alexandria Seaport Foundation
• Live It Learn It Learning field trips to places such as Frederick Douglass National Historical Site and the National Museum of American History
• Testing vehicular velocity, soil composition and food chemistry with hands-on science projects through the National Science Resource Center
• Learning map navigation and depth sounding aboard a full-sized schooner with the National Maritime Heritage Foundation
• Writing and doing readings of their own plays with the Young Playwright’s Theater
• Building their own spectrometers and learning about the life cycles of stars in the NASA Afterschool Universe program
• Designing and building robots with Mindstorms from LEGO
• Learning the Japanese art of Anime cartooning
• Creating their own comic books on bullying with the Comic Book Project
• Exploring bridge design with the National Building Museum
• Strengthening vocabulary, grammar, and writing skills through hip-hop with H.E.L.P.
• Taking a hands-on world percussion tour with Community Help in Music Education
• Meeting NASCAR legends while building cars for the DC Soapbox Derby
• Saving the universe from evil parasites and learning science at the same time with the computer-based science project Kinetic City from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science
• Quilting and learning about the Underground Railroad with teaching artist Joanne Henson
• Going through video boot camp with DCTV

Up to 1,000 additional children went through Discovery Creek Children’s Museum Rolling Rainforest.

Here are some useful links:

• Critical Exposure
• H.E.L.P (Hip-Hop Education Literacy Program)
• LEGO’s Mindstorms
• Comic Book Project
• Great Science for Girls
• Live It Learn It