Summer 2023 Highlights
More updates coming soon!
Check out our CareerReady SYEP Social Justice Projects
CareerReady SYEP with PowerTools
Rising juniors Noumou Diallo and Darius Blake-Simmond and rising senior Sophie Santana worked with PowerTools as publishing aides and social-emotional learning interns. Their duties included creating learning activities for middle and high school students, developing blog posts, interviewing educators, and more.
About the SYEP Hosts
PowerTools is a Educational and Corporate Consulting Firm that serves the greater NYC area and beyond. On the educational end, PowerTools partners with schools, youth, organizations, and families to create systems, environments and experiences that optimize community power and potential. On the corporate end, PowerTools partners with business clients to transform their teams, outcomes, and create new possibilities for growth.
Summer Reflections
Noumou:
The feedback that I've gotten on my personal project is realizing that there's always room to add more, and it's never finished...Kind of like how we are at Maker, there's always more iterations and more ways to improve. There's never a final product.
Darius:I would say never settle for less and just keep going. Eventually you'll do better.
Sophie:
Having some kind of opportunity to team build before you get down to the hard work is helpful...and I want to end the same way we start, which is more team building, kind of spending time together. Really extract all the juices from the experience.
Citizen Science
Citizen Science is part of a larger program hosted by Teachers College and Columbia University. Students are supported in developing and acting up on the skills they will need to collect and analyze data in ways that mirrors the work environmental scientists. Students investigate questions related to the health of NYC water bodies.
In particular this year, students continued the work of last year by attempting to find out what could be done to fix the pond at Morningside Park. This was done in comparison with other parks throughout NYC which students visited over the course of the three week program. Students did water quality testing, collected and observed various life forms living in the water, explored the environment around the water bodies and learned about the historical and social context of each location. Students visited programs the Billion Oysters Project and saw how humans can impact the environment positively. The program culminated with students producing projects based around whatever question felt most relevant to them about each park. All of the data they collected will continue to be a big help to getting the pond at Morningside Park restored for residents to be able to enjoy!
Digital Citizen
Supported by Teacher's College at Columbia University, Maker staff and students engaged in projects around digital citizenship and technology.
Students worked on collaborative projects and have gotten to present on panels alongside professionals including NASA scientists. Field trips included a day at Microsoft with Games for Change.
