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By James Nicholson
If there was ever any doubt that cultural institutions are
extraordinary civic assets, Douglas King, president and CEO of the
Saint Louis Science Center has provided some not-so-surprising statistics
guaranteed to convert even the most outspoken anti-intellectual
scoffer. Even better, under his leadership, the Science Center has
created a highly successful educational program, which demonstrates
that, with proper guidance and exposure, potentially underachieving
students, many from chronically underachieving schools, can be intellectually
stimulated into becoming highly employable young adults.
Who, for instance, would have predicted that more women than men
visit the Science Center? Or, that, the second largest demographic
group visiting the Center would be adults in the company of other
adults in the 25 to 44 age bracket possessing, at a minimum, a collegiate
background?
“We think that the prominence of science in daily life has resulted
in visits by people wanting to be informed of the issues they’re
encountering. For instance, there’s a lot written about St. Louis
becoming the new center of the BioBelt. But what’s the BioBelt?
There’s a huge interest from a public with almost no understanding
of certain contemporary issues. Coming here is how they keep themselves
informed, King explains. He also points out that, once the Planetarium
opened in 1963, people soon began to think of it as “the Visitor
Center to the Sky” and used it to understand virtually every and
anything that happened above earth. The Science Center, he believes,
is well on its way to being viewed as “the Visitors Center to the
BioBelt. It opens a new role for us in terms of the general public,”
King explains, “We now serve different purposes. We’re educating
kids for the future, as well as providing new information for the
adults of today.”
He goes on to point out that, in 2004 (the last year the data was
compiled), the Saint Louis Science Center ranked fifth (trailing
four institutions in metropolitan areas with a much greater population
base) in the Nation in on-site Science Center attendance and that
the combined attendance for the five institutions (the Zoo, the
Science Center, the History Museum, the Art Museum and Missouri
Botanical Garden) benefiting from the Zoo/Museum Tax District was
about six million. “That’s twice as many people as live in the region,”
he cites as a point of reference. “Very few cities”, he continues,
“have five great cultural institutions. It’s a unique set of assets.”
As far as the Science Center is concerned, it is also an asset that
is projected to attract over a million visitors this year, a full
third of whom will be tourists and many of whom will prove to be
repeat visitors throughout the year. By far the largest number of
them will be families and/or adults accompanying children. The greater
the exposure, the greater the interest and, in a nation currently
being chastised for not keeping up with the rest of the world in
its development of scientists, that’s a fair number of children
being exposed—at least once, if not more often—to the challenges
of scientific thought.
Visiting the Center, as King is quick to point out, is not the Center’s
only means of providing access to serious scientific concerns. He
is extremely proud of the Science Center’s Youth Exploring Science
(YES) program (for more information, see accompanying article).
“We established the program as a leap of faith”, he explicates.
“We brainstormed what we thought a science center should be and
came to the conclusion that it should be a great place to take kids,
and that it should also have a substantial educational entity.”
What resulted was a flagship program providing students culled from
many local community organizations focused on providing them job
skills and social skills, as well as hands-on scientific projects.
The project started with fourteen 14 year olds and has produced
some surprising results. “All of the YES Teens who have stayed with
us through high school have graduated, and are now in college, technical
schools, the military, and interesting jobs. Of this year’s class
of 31 seniors, 24 have already been accepted to college. Few of
them came here at 14 with that expectation.”
King recently had the privilege of attending the graduation of a
first year YES program member and the first of the group to graduate
from college. Wright becomes dead serious while discussing this
achievement. “He had to be a pioneer. Now his entire family views
the world with different expectations.” He does not discount the
contributions of that family. “It took a lot of support from the
family,” he goes on, “to make difficult decisions. A lot of kids,”
he extrapolates, “are fighting upstream when they try to change
their lives.”
The success of the YES program has not gone unrecognized. “Last
year, we received one of only four Leadership Awards given internationally
by the 600 member Association of Science/Technology Centers for
this program. When we started, we didn’t realize we would be training
a great work force or that we would be getting involved in their
(our students) lives and that they would be involved in our lives.
YES teens now also work for other cultural institutions and, with
our partners in the corporate world, intern for local companies.”
That institutional leap of faith has resulted in a “real world program”
that affects the entire metropolitan area.
The
Center has four classrooms and the students in each
class have a dedicated project lasting from four to
six weeks to two to three years. |
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Welcome to YES
Diane Miller exhibits her domain, the Saint Louis Science Center’s
Taylor Community Science Resource Center, with gracious enthusiasm.
The Center, itself, reflects her hospitality. “I wanted the architect
to provide us that front wall of windows so the community would
feel welcome to come in. The windows are important to me. They say
we have nothing to hide; we want you in here.”
Miller, the Science Center’s Vice President for Community Programs
and Partnerships, is not kidding. The Center has plenty to show
off and revels in community participation. Miller’s YES (Youth Exploring
Science) Association of Science/Technology Centers Award-winning
educational program certainly deserves the recognition it has received,
and the students it serves receive priceless educational nurturing.
“The Science Center wanted to attract students who traditionally
avoid science education and science careers—women, the poor and
people of color—and introduce them to all the possibilities science
has to offer,” Miller explains. “We recruit our students from various
community organizations—Girls Inc., the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation,
YWCA, Matthews-Dickey, Annie Malone, the Adams Community Center,
et cetera—and we commit to them from the time they’re 14 until they
enter college.” The students (from over 30 city, county and East
Side High Schools), in turn, commit their Saturdays, their summers,
their brains and their enthusiasm.
“We have a teen staff of 140. We have a kitchen stocked with the
various foods and fresh fruit. If the kids are hungry, they eat.
It’s hard to teach kids who are hungry. They work. They receive
a salary.”
Of course, they also receive exposure to many aspects of science.
“Exposure affects what you like”, Miller explains. “You like a particular
form of music—jazz, opera, hip-hop—because you’ve been exposed to
it. We’re providing a form of exposure that is otherwise missing
from their lives.”
The Center has four classrooms and the students in each class have
a dedicated project lasting from four to six weeks to two to three
years. Each group consists of 20 or fewer students and two staff
members. All the projects have clients. One group, for instance,
is working with Dignity House—a food pantry. The students are devising
ways to supplement the available staples with fresh food. They grow
food. They investigate ways to extend the growing season. They work
with engineers and architects to build structures capable of doing
just that. A solution to one problem leads to more problems to solve
and, as Miller points out, “the more complicated the project, the
more the kids want to do it.”
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Douglas King, president & CEO of the Saint Louis Science
Center, poses with a group of YES teens. |
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A Wet Lab, with equipment from Monsanto and funded by the State
of Missouri allows students to focus on lab techniques. With a goal
of securing positions for the students in professional laboratories,
the Educational Center Lab provides an environment in which students
can absorb proper lab protocol. “No professional has time to explain
protocol in a working environment,” observes Miller. “A successful
project in our Lab solves that problem.” All of the programs in
the Lab contain a heavy math component. “We teach kids who have
barely learned arithmetic how to do math”, Miller explains. “To
do the solutions, the students need to sense that math is a language
and that it is needed to explain science.”
Another group is hard at work on a Genome Sequencing Unit with the
goal of helping the public understand the subject. Their solution
is to create a video game. To do so, however, they first must understand
what makes a video a video. Then they have to design the video.
Then they have to infiltrate the video with the information needed
for its players to absorb the concept of Genome Sequencing. “They’ve
been at it two years now,” grins Miller. “Fortunately, they have
more time.
A fourth group is focused on using engineering as a way to teach
science. They were first given a design challenge—take all the light
out of their room. Then they created a pinhole camera obscura in
one of the windows of the room. “That created a surprise”, Miller
admits with a smile. It also built interest. They then went on to
build a camera obscura and to take pictures. Having added electricity
into the mix, they are now busy with wire, batteries and cups building
speakers. “Providing them set skills,” explains Miller “allows them
to transfer those skill to multiple possibilities.”
As successful as the program is, Miller is quick to point out that
that success does not come without a massive amount of inner strength
from its participants. “These kids need contact to change their
culture, and changing that culture subjects them to class pressure,
peer pressure and a great deal of pressure at school. They have
to buy into the program and support each other in the program. Having
a child in this program can change the mindset of an entire family.”
It can also, obviously, completely change the future for that child.
No wonder Miller can barely keep a smile off her face while discussing
her magic kingdom. |
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