Engaging, Entertaining, and Educating Under-Served and At-Risk Youth with STEM-Based Activities

In recently constructing a curriculum for our Neuroscience major, a service-learning component was included that requires students to develop and present STEM-based activities to underserved 4^th-6^th grade children in an afterschool program. Though initially proposed with a primary goal of teaching children specific concepts in the field of neuroscience, efforts have gradually shifted towards simply increasing interest in, and enthusiasm for, STEM through interactive demonstrations. Most of the activities used incorporate neuroscience examples that are inherently intriguing and conceptually accessible to children. The present article briefly summarizes our experiences with enlisting college students as youth mentors, and having those students work within the community to establish a conducive setting for such a program. Insight is also offered into developing activities that might be successful for working with this particular population, including possible approaches to assessing effectiveness. Finally, specific examples for several activities are given.