The Smithsonian Science Education Center believes so much in an upcoming after-school program in Aspen that it has become its partner.
That new alliance begins in earnest this fall, when two Aspen High School students, Jesse Lopez and Luca Morrow-Yeager, will be mentor-type instructors to middle school students in a program titled “Always Thinking Like a Scientist,” or ATLAS, on early-release Wednesdays. The Aspen ATLAS sessions will be under the umbrella of the Smithsonian as a proof-of-concept program which, if successful, could be implemented in other after-school clubs throughout the country.
But first, organizers are aiming for the program to have students — primarily eighth-graders from Aspen Middle School, Aspen Community School and Aspen Country Day — this fall semester, with possibly more than 20 in the spring.
Jackie Francis, a former director of the Aspen Science Center now with TLS/Aspen, will help lead the club’s effort of thinking like a scientist and emergent thinking. The 10 fall sessions will last two hours each; another 12 to 15 sessions will be offered in the spring. Sept. 1 is the deadline for students to sign-up at atlasaspen@gmail.com.
“The immediate goal with our first semester is to set an idea of looking at science in a different way,” said Morrow-Yeager, who turns 15 this week and will technically be a sophomore, though he is on a three-year graduation track. “Hopefully we’ll get more people interested in the second semester.”
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