Urban Advantage and Exit Projects
Urban Advantage is a program that connects NYC middle school science teachers with the local cultural and scientific institutions in the city so that the students have access to field trips and scientific mentoring while completing a year-long exit project, a self-chosen, self-directed science investigation. It’s amazing and you should definitely learn more about it and it should be in every city and town
As a UA teacher, I attended training sessions to learn how to guide the students through the process. Since I went to the NY Aquarium for training, I'll give an example here of an animal behavior project. We have also done controlled experiments, secondary research, and sometimes a design project.
To take advantage of observing the animals at the aquarium, we learned (and then taught the kids) how to create and use ethograms by first observing the animals, by studying what other scientists had researched about the animals, and by interviewing people, like the trainers, if possible.
It’s awesome to stand in the dark hallway between enormous glass barriers, listening to groups of three children calling out:
Kid One: “Time!” every 15 seconds
Kid Two: “4 feet!”, which is how close the two otters are to each other
pause while Kid Three writes it down on their ethogram
“Time!”
Back at school, we graph and analyze the data, and come to scientific conclusions. The kids create tri-fold boards in a scientific format. Each teacher then determines which of the teams will present their project at the American Museum of Natural History, under the big blue whale, with all the other amazing science students from all over NYC. That Expo is incredibly powerful in how it bonds the kids to the idea that they are in an elite group of people who can do science, along with all these other kids who actually seem cool. (Of course, this was pre-pandemic.)
Lead Teacher
2009 - 2012
As a UA Lead Teacher, I worked with other teachers and the institution staff to design the training for the middle school science teachers. We learned the SIMPL method of training trainers, which was a pretty powerful way to focus your attention on exactly what the training should consist of so each group of stakeholders can achieve their goals. We also trained to evaluate textbooks and other instructional material and participated in many collaborative action projects.
As a Lead Teacher, I worked with the NY Hall of Science and the NY Botanical Garden. I’ve led student trips to all of those places, plus the Bronx Zoo and Natural History.
In 2009, I led the Science Leadership Team from Bronx School of Law, Government and Justice to have the school certified as a Demo School for the Urban Advantage program.
Expos at Our School
Since the UA Expo can’t accommodate all of our new scientists, we often had celebrations at the school, such as
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the Physical Science Fair at BxLGJ, for which the competing categories were Rolling, Flying, Floating, and Do-Nothing (Rube Goldberg)
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a full-blown Expo at Archimedes, complete with community visitors and families
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(humanities) the Middletopia Evening at Messalonskee Middle School, to present the utopian communities the kids had designed, with our entire team of teachers
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(math) Pi Night, with families, complete with a group of kids in each classroom ready to demonstrate the finer points of pi, such as Pies in the Faces of Teachers, Pi and Bubbles, and more.
Other Trips
In addition to the institutional field trips, I often led grade-level groups on trips throughout NYC. Some memorable ones were
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the water quality study of Soundview Bay, a walking distance from Archimedes Academy
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a few Central Park trips: to study the trees, to study the rock formations, and to engage in a scavenger hunt that ended at the Heckscher Playground, which has sprinklers!
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a Staten Island Ferry trip
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a New Amsterdam scavenger hunt using disposable cameras for the kids to find items such as Herman Melville’s bust, Fraunces Tavern, Trinity Church, and more. This was still the 20th century, when there were still World Trade towers.
Science Investigation Topics
in no particular order
Urban Advantage trains us to think of scientific questions from a point of view of the variables in the question, and how we can measure the outcomes. Therefore, our basic scientific question is always, "What is the effect of ___ on ___? The independent and dependent variables complete the question.
These are just some of the more memorable projects completed in my time with Urban Advantage.
What is the effect of
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propulsion source on the distance traveled by a guy on roller blades: coke and Mentos vs. baking soda and vinegar
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a person's age on choices of food at McDonalds
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cooking time on the consistency of a lava lamp (this one exploded and evacuated the 4th floor, so it was memorable)
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feeding time on behavior of hamsters, rabbits, and gerbils, as well as countless fish, and other animals at the zoo and aquarium
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flavor on an ant's choice of food (root beer vs. orange juices, sugar vs. salt, pink sugar vs red sugar, and more.
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type of food on how long it could burn to heat a small amount of water. (Don't try to burn hot dogs, as much as they seem like they'd burn. They're just too soggy. Peanuts are much more satisfying.)
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wing size, shape, or thickness on the flight time or distance of various paper airplane designs
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temperature on how hard a crayfish can pull
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different types of trees on how fast they lose leaves in the fall
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the place you get water in a school on the amount of bacteria found there,
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people's perception of safe drinking water on their water choices
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wet and dry areas on the number of mushrooms growing there
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temperature (room, frozen, hot) on how long a strand of DNA is
