Special Issue: Celebrating Lights On Afterschool!
In recognition of the Afterschool Alliance's campaign to coalesce support
for afterschool, this issue of the YouthLearn Newsletter focuses on news
and resources related to the afterschool arena.

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YouthLearn Updates

YouthLearn Continues as Mott Foundation's Afterschool Academies Partner
This summer, YouthLearn team members worked with other partners in the
Afterschool Academies training initiative to pilot test new professional development
strategies for afterschool practitioners. Academies were offered in San Jose,
California and Macon, Georgia and drew almost 100 practitioners to each event.
The approach is one that explores how best to weave academic enrichment into
afterschool program design and advocates for the integration of positive youth
development principles, thoughtful staff development, and experiential learning
strategies. YouthLearn focuses on how to develop inquiry-driven, project-based
learning curriculum through hands-on workshops and peer coaching. The program
is funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Collaborators include lead
organization Foundations Inc., as well as the Center for Youth Development,
Citizen Schools, and afterschool gurus Gary & Eve Moody, formerly of Arnold's
All-Stars. For more information about the Afterschool Academies, visit:
URL: http://www.foundationsinc.org/afterschool/cace_academies.asp

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News

Lights On Afterschool! - October 12
"Lights On Afterschool is celebrated nationwide to call attention to the importance
of afterschool programs for America's children, families and communities...
Lights On Afterschool was launched in October 2000 with celebrations in more
than 1,200 communities nationwide. The event grew in 2001 to more than 3,600
events, and more than 7,500 in 2005. This October 2006, 1 million Americans will
celebrate Lights On Afterschool!... Lights On Afterschool is a project of the
Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that all
children have access to quality, affordable afterschool programs by 2010."
URL: http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/lights_on/index.cfm

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Funding

State Farm Youth Advisory Board Service-Learning Grants
"Young people, teachers, schools and districts, and community organizations who
believe in the power of service-learning to promote academic achievement and
address fundamental community problems don't want to miss this opportunity to
secure grant funds of $25,000-$100,000 to support well-designed, student-led
service-learning projects that structurally impact one of the four issues: Disaster
Preparedness; Driver Safety; Financial Responsibility; Access to Higher Education/
Closing the Achievement Gap. The inaugural 30-member State Farm Youth
Advisory Board, comprised of 30 students between the ages of 17-20, was
established to design and administer a $5 million annual grant fund to support
service-learning projects. Applicants may choose between one-and two-year
grant options." Deadline: November 15, 2006
URL: http://www.statefarmyab.com/page1.php

Target Launches New Field Trip Grants Program
"As part of the Target commitment to supporting education, the new Target Field
Trip Grants program will award U.S. educators grants of $1,000 each to fund a
field trip for their students. Target Field Trip Grants may be used to fund trips
ranging from visits to art museums and environmental projects to cultural events
and civic experiences. Up to eight hundred grants will be awarded. Grants are
awarded to educators, teachers, principals, para-professionals, and/or classified
staff. Applications must be submitted electronically between September 1, 2006,
and November 1, 2006."
URL: http://sites.target.com/site/en/corporate/page.jsp?contentId=PRD03-002537
Referred by: Foundation Center

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Resources

The YouthLearn Guide and YouthLearn's Afterschool & Technology Website
Our signature resource, The YouthLearn Guide: A Creative Approach to Working
With Youth and Technology, has helped so many practitioners over the past few
years that we thought it worthwhile to remind folks about it again. The Guide is
an easy-to-use, hands-on manual with more than 160 pages of lessons,
worksheets, and sample activities on how to set up a new learning program or
enhance an existing one. As with our other resources, the Guide helps
practitioners combine new technologies and proven teaching techniques in ways
that will make your work even more rewarding for you and the children you
serve. You can use the Guide in conjunction with the activities, program models,
and additional resources shared on the YouthLearn website to develop and enrich
your afterschool program.
URL: http://www.youthlearn.org/guide/index.html
Please also check out, if you haven't already, our Afterschool & Technology
section for model programs. Launched last year, this section documents the work
of 8 afterschool programs that integrate technology into content-rich learning
experiences. As always, we would love to hear your thoughts about these
resources and to learn about your own efforts with project-based learning and
technology integration.
URL: http://www.youthlearn.org/afterschool/index.htm

Resources on Afterschool, Fourth Edition
"This Web site and CD-Rom, now in a fourth edition, host a substantial spectrum
of resources produced by Mott Foundation Grantees on research and evaluation,
promising practices, professional development, public awareness and
communications, policy development, financing strategies and opportunities to
consider in afterschool." This impressive collection of materials is comprehensive,
well-organized, and current--updated in 2006. Whatever your need may be,
you're likely to find some relevant resources.
URL: http://www.publicengagement.com/AfterschoolResources/index.html

MENTOR's Afterschool Clearinghouse
"The After School Clearinghouse is designed to provide you with tools and
resources to add a mentoring component to your after school program. It also
provides resources you can use to implement, manage and strengthen your after-
school program. Here you'll find information on how to implement a mentoring
component in a new or existing after-school program as well as a clearinghouse
of after-school program resources, including: Program Planning and Design;
Program Management; Program Operations; Program Evaluation; Mentor Trainer's
Manual."
URL: http://www.mentoring.org/program_staff/index.php?cid=61

After-School Program Toolkit
"The nation's fifth largest youth-serving organization, Communities In Schools
champions the connection of needed community resources with schools to help
kids succeed in school and prepare for life... The body of research on after-
school programs--though still maturing--must be accessible to people who run
after-school programs. This toolkit was designed to put research into the hands
of the people running after-school programs by summarizing: after-school
programs found to be effective; core elements that contribute to the success
of these programs; a body of resources to sustain quality after-school programs;
toolkit development."
URL: http://www.cisnet.org/working_together/after-school.asp

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Activities

Showcase of Community-Based Activities
This site shares community-based curricula for elementary through high school
age students as well as descriptions and educators' reflections on the experience
of facilitating the activities. "The curriculum exemplars you will find here possess
strong elements of community-based education, in principle and practice. Many
of the examples we showcase on these pages also make use of service-learning
as a pedagogy. Most of the exemplars presented here were originally featured in
our publications Community Works Journal, or in Connecting Service-Learning to
the Curriculum." The Community Works On-Line Resource Center is operated by
Vermont Community Works.
URL: http://www.vermontcommunityworks.org/exemplars/index.html

YouthLearn's Guide to Field Trips That Maximize Learning
Field trips are a great way to bring excitement and adventure to learning. A
focused, well-planned field trip can be the perfect vehicle to introduce new
skills and concepts to kids, reinforce ongoing lessons and leverage the learning
potential of other trips you'll take throughout the session. If your field trips are
going to be more than just fun, however, it will take serious teamwork and
planning. When it comes to maximizing the learning value of field trips, nothing
is more important than what you do long before stepping onto the bus.
URL: http://www.youthlearn.org/learning/activities/fieldtrip.html

We welcome your feedback!

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YouthLearn
http://www.youthlearn.org

This newsletter is produced by the YouthLearn Initiative at EDC especially for
members of the YouthLearn discussion group. Every two weeks, the newsletter is
compiled from the entries in the YouthLearn News Blog, including summaries
from various sources that YouthLearn staff periodically review.

Past newsletters are archived at http://www.youthlearn.org/resources/newsletter/index.html.

YouthLearn is a project of the nonprofit Education Development Center, Inc.
Designed for youth development professionals, teachers, educators, and other
caring adults, YouthLearn provides resources and tools for developing effective
learning programs enhanced with technology, particularly in out-of-school settings.

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Copyright 2006 Education Development Center, Inc. All rights reserved.
YouthLearn was created by the Morino Institute.