Welcome to the Consumers Guide to Afterschool Science Resources!

-- a message from the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley

We are pleased to present this guide and hope it will be a valuable resource for practitioners looking for science materials to use in afterschool settings. The idea for the guide grew out of discussions among members of the Coalition for Science After School, a group of approximately 40 science education and afterschool organizations, researchers, and advocates. The Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) at the University of California, Berkeley took the lead in conducting the review process with support from the SEDL National Center for Quality Afterschool.

In the article "Science by Stealth," published in the February 22, 2006 edition of Education Week, Lucy Friedman from The After-School Corporation and Jane Quinn from the Children's Aid Society, both founding members of the Coalition's steering committee, point out that 75% of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences report their passion for science was first sparked in non-school environments. This validates the Coalition's confidence in the use of fun academic enrichment activities in afterschool programs to nurture student interest in science and to support literacy and mathematics learning, as well. See the Coalition's Web site for more information.

Development of the Guide
The Consumers Guide to Afterschool Science Resources was created to share information about sources of high-quality, hands-on science content for afterschool programs. Inspired by the popular Zagat Survey restaurant reviews, developers at LHS began in July 2005 with an open nomination process, asking afterschool practitioners to recommend programs and/or materials that they themselves had used or seen in action and found to be of high quality.

Next, Coalition members reviewed all nominations and selected those that seemed most promising. Each of these selected resources then received a written commentary from one afterschool and one science content expert who were asked to examine the quality and accuracy of the material, its social and entertainment value, its appropriateness for the afterschool environment, and its durability and cost.

Click here for a description of the evaluation criteria used to evaluate each resources.

About the Resources
Programs and materials in this guide comprise a wide range of resources, from fully developed multi-year curricula to idea books to a series of units to kits focused on specific topics. They also vary in the amount of science expertise required to use them well, the costs associated with purchase and use, and other factors. Every resource will not be suitable for every instructor, setting, or budget; thus, the reviews should be read carefully before considering a purchase. We hope you find the information useful. Please give us feedback at afterschool@berkeley.edu.