DiscoverE After School and Lunch Clubs Bursaries
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Field Law! The funds provided by Field Law to our in-school clubs have been a huge piece in allowing us to expand our programming to schools in need. The opportunity for children and youth at these schools to participate in DiscoverE programs can have an extremely positive influence on them and help keep them engaged and interested in STEM now and for years to come. Our school clubs focus on working with schools in Edmonton to give students the opportunity to experience the excitement of science, technology, engineering, and math through fun, interactive hands-on activities and challenges. School clubs are presented by a pair of enthusiastic, highly-trained University of Alberta student instructors who bring in all the materials and take care of the clean-up.
This past term we were able to run 8 different clubs and 6 different schools, half of which we were able to run on bursaries. Previously we only had the ability to run 2-4 clubs per four month term.
The clubs were a great success, the students learned to explore Coding or Engineering over 8 weeks of programming. Grades 1-3 and 4-6’s focused on using Scratch and Python, while our Grade 7-9 and 10-12’s went a bit deeper into Python. Our Engineering clubs went into everything from creating a flood proof house to the physics of sports.
The participants loved being able to see our instructors each week, and we are excited to be able to bring these programs to schools that normally cannot afford this type of programming.
A few quotes:
“One of the students was very excited to learn about my experience surrounding computer engineering and computer science. He asked me about which program would be better for him and I helped him weigh the benefits of both. He had quite a bit of programming experience and we were able to converse about it at a relatively high level.” – Instructor teaching at Queen Elizabeth High School Coding Club
“This program is great. This is exactly what this school needs. This is the best thing the school has ever done. These kids get so much screen time already, this is just great. It really gets them thinking. It’s exactly what they need”. – Parent of one participant at Avonmore Engineering Club
Thank you again for your support of our program and the youth that attend our programs.