Project Excite - A Model for Positively Affecting Academic, Opportunity Gaps

 For nearly twenty years, Evanston Township High School (ETHS) was part of a long-term effort, in collaboration with Northwestern University and District 65, to study and try to find a solution to a major problem seen in so many diverse communities and schools around the country - despite great effort, countless conversations and numerous programs, too often we see academic achievement gaps between white students and students of color, that are already in place at young ages and show no signs of improvement through high school graduation. How and why is it that results in things like test scores, grades, participation in honors and advanced placement (AP) classes, participation in academically inclined extracurricular activities and clubs, graduation rates, and college acceptance and attendance become very different between demographic groups, despite the fact that the students all grew up and attended the same schools, with the same resources and teachers, and in theory had exposure to the same potential opportunities? And is it possible to diminish and perhaps even eliminate such gaps before students graduate from the K-12 public school system? 

These were the research questions of Project Excite, and the goal was to determine if there is a systematic, comprehensive, sustained and long-term program or method that would have any significant effect on closing the achievement and opportunity gaps in the community.

Excite no longer exists, and there are no dedicated efforts trying to address achievement gaps in E-town. We hope to resurrect something soon, on a wider scale. It provides a model that demonstrated a long-term, comprehensive, inclusive and more holistic approach to build up not only academic skills and knowledge base, but more importantly self-confidence and self-esteem for the students as well as families, can reduce and eliminate the measured achievement gaps. We also saw consistent increases of Excite students into honors and AP courses when in ETHS, which is part of the opportunity gap that has historically seen underrepresentation of students of color at these academic levels.

Here's a summary of the original Project Excite, and how it was run.

Climate Modeling: EdGCM

 A former professional level climate modeling package has been turned into an educational modeling example and option to do climate modeling research for students. Called the Educational Global Climate  Model, EdGCM, it is a user-friendly, open-source program students can use and work with. We recently had a student figure out how to run the program, and this is a sample video presentation of what he did. 

For computer savvy students wanting to pursue climate science and modeling, where they can control and change numerous environmental parameters and then run simulations to determine predicted outcomes from the science mathematical models within EdGCM, they can actually do the research! 

A very cool zero-emissions boat: solar + hydrogen

 If you enjoy cool engineering and energy efficiency, climate change innovations, alternative energies, and all related to these topics, check out this really cool ship! It is all solar, wind and hydrogen fueled! 

Voyager mission - still making discoveries

 To the juniors, we were just thinking about the Voyager mission, and how NASA scientists and engineers were able to figure out how to get these two probes, launched in 1977, to the big outer planets and then out of the solar system! This article outlines what one of the probes is doing, outside the boundary of the solar system (the heliopause) and is measuring what the interstellar medium is like. Fascinating, and we still get data from the probe some 44 years after launch and 14 Billion miles away!! Check it out. 

For the Historians: Interesting history to the start of western science, 2500 years ago

 Check out this truly interesting article outlining the start of the modern science approach, coming from Greece some 2500 years ago. Anaxagoras, whom I cannot recall ever reading about, came to Athens, Greece, and may have interacted with Socrates, who of course had the pupil Plato and then Aristotle, to develop the philosophical foundation of Western society. Anaxagoras was a prominent figure in having an off-shoot or purely philosophical reasoning to natural philosophy, which is a term that lasted millennia until we changed it to science! 

Let's appreciate the geniuses from SO long ago. I wonder how many of our names will still be remembered in the year 4521!