Long Island Children’s Museum Engages Students in STEM

The faces of Green Teens, a volunteer program created by the Long Island Children’s Museum that engages students in the field of STEM. Photo by // LICM.

The Long Islands Children’s Museum is inspiring the next generation’s interest in STEM through its Green Teens program and collaborative partnership with the Westbury School District. These initiatives allow students to learn and experiment with the subjects of science, technology, mathematics, and engineering. New funding from PricewaterhouseCoopers has allowed the museum’s Green Teen initiative to expand by enlisting alumni from the program to mentor current participants.

Green Teens is a volunteer opportunity run by the Long Island’s Children’s Museum for local high school students who are interested in the field of STEM.

In this program Claire D’emic, the STEM Initiative Program Director, mentors a group of teenage volunteers in creating programs for the public focusing on science, nature, and sustainability. It’s an opportunity for both students and the public to get engaged with science.

In each month of the school year, the Green Teens meet to facilitate their planned STEM activity for the general public. The morning is spent planning next month’s activity and the afternoon is used to execute that month’s play-based science program for the museum’s visitors.

“Students are responsible for figuring out, designing, prototyping, and iterating the program that we do and then actually going out on the floor interacting with the public and facilitating those activities,” said Claire D’emic, the STEM Initiative Program Director at the Long Island Children’s Museum.

Green Teen volunteers conducting a STEM-related activity for visitors at the Long Island Children’s Museum. Photo by // LICM.

The Green Teens program also hosts a stem weekend at the museum where they invite professionals from the STEM field to do activities related to their work or research. Last year, the theme was professionals whose focus was somehow connected to water. It related to a new exhibit at the Museum “Saltwater Stories” that focuses on Long Islanders’ connections to the water in Long island

“The teens get to learn about all these different professions that there are, as well as the public. We get to see all these different opportunities, maybe jobs you didn’t think of as a science job,” said D’emic.

The recent funding from PricewaterhouseCoopers is allowing Green Teens to expand through a mentorship-like program. Past Green Teens volunteers who are now graduating college and entering the workforce will be able to offer insight to the new group of teens.

“We are piloting this alumni expansion and hoping that over time it grows as well. Through this program we are gonna set up times for the current cohort and these alumni to interact. I’ve gotten a lot of enthusiastic responses from the alumni,” said D’emic.

There will be general lunches as well as one on one time between the alumni and students. Within the mentorship, students can rely on their mentors to help them better understand the college process.

The museum’s initiative to introduce and inspire students in science, math, technology, and engineering is further solidified through a partnership with Westbury School District.

The partnership allows the children to gain that experience and exposure to STEM early on. Starting early with STEM education will help Long Island’s youth find more interest in the four subjects. As the economy grows, the need for well-skilled STEM educators and innovators becomes prevalent.

Students engage in an activity with bubbles that helps them learn their shapes. Photo by // LICM.

This collaboration serves the three elementary schools within the district for every student between first and third grade along with all special education students from kindergarten to twelfth grade.

“We have certainly seen that a lot of the time people wait to do STEM until later in middle school or high school,” said Maureen Mangan, Director of Communications at the Long Island Children’s Museum. “Frequently you will find that children have already opted out of science as something they are interested in pursuing. So the idea is to be able to catch them early and keep working with them.”

The program developed as the district and teachers needed hands-on STEM content. They needed guidance and structure that the museum could offer them when it came to teaching those subjects.

“We do professional development with their teachers so there’s sort of a they come here we go there. We provide stem kits to the teachers to use in their classrooms, so that serves about a thousand kids a year,” said Mangan.

Teachers from the Westbury School District participating in professional development activities. Photos by // LICM

Throughout the school year, the students will visit the museum on several trips. They go on Mondays when the museum is closed to the public where they encounter learning challenges and workshops related to STEM.

“It is a co-teaching model where the teachers are responsible for teaching part of the curriculum in our gallery spaces then the museum staff is responsible for the other part of it. It becomes an extension of their classroom,” said D’emic.

Students also have opportunities to showcase their work and what they’ve learned to their families. On family night, a hands-on science-related activity is brought to each of the three elementary schools where students and parents can work on it together.

The Long Island Children’s Museum continues to work on and grow its Green Teens program and Westbury School District partnership. These initiatives have been highly funded by the National Grid which is the museum’s largest corporate sponsor. Their dedication to STEM programming has helped the museum inspire the next generation of Long Island’s youth.