Education & Careers  

Project Learn

Project Learn reinforces and enhances the skills and knowledge young people learn at school during the hours they spend at the Club. This comprehensive program strategy is based on Dr. Reginald Clark’s research showing that students do much better in school when they spend their non-school hours engaged in fun, but academically beneficial, activities. Through Project Learn, Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for these high-yield learning activities, which include leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help and tutoring and games like Scrabble that develop young people’s cognitive skills. Project Learn also emphasizes parent involvement and collaboration between Club and school professionals as critical factors in creating the best after-school learning environment for Club members ages 6-18. Extensively field-tested and formally evaluated by Columbia University with funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Project Learn has been proven to boost the academic performance of Club members. The JCPenney Afterschool Fund underwrote the initial implementation of this educational enhancement approach in Clubs across the nation.

Power Hour  Making Minutes Count

Power Hour: Making Minutes Count helps Club members ages 6-12 be more successful in school by providing homework help and tutoring and encouraging members to become self-directed learners. The program tracks and rewards participants’ progress as they participate throughout the school year.

Skill Tech

Skill Tech is a basic computer skills program that develops Club members’ proficiency with word processing, spreadsheet and other productivity software through fun, hands-on, engaging lessons and projects for four age groups. Skill Tech is just one of the technology programs developed through BGCA’s Club Tech initiative, generously sponsored by Microsoft Corporation and Best Buy Children’s Foundation.

NetSmartz

NetSmartz teaches Internet safety skills through engaging multimedia activities and offline interaction with Club professionals in three age-appropriate modules: Clicky’s Web World (for ages 6 to 7); NetSmartz Rules (for ages 8 to 12); and I-360 (for ages 13 to 18). Topics include personal safety, shopping safety and ethical use of the Internet. To learn more, youth ages 12 and younger can go directly to www.netsmartzkids.org; where teens, parents and Club staff can learn about Internet safety at www.netsmartz.org. BGCA collaborated with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to develop NetSmartz. Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.