Enrichment Programs
Our Enrichment Programs are designed to engage a small group of students in the wonder of science, engineering, and math. Using hands-on approaches to problem solving, students explore and test hypotheses, design experiments, and learn strategies and best practices to solving mathematical word problems. To enroll a student, click here, and be sure to select which enrichment program at the end of the application.
MCAS Math Preparation
MCAS uses word problems to get students to demonstrate that they understand math and can use it in their lives. Answering word problems is a sure way to improve MCAS scores. Our MCAS Math Prep program helps students in grades four through six review math concepts and master word problems. Students also learn test-taking strategies to give them confidence to tackle the MCAS and do well.
Students are matched with tutors for one-on-one sessions, meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the five weeks leading up to the MCAS in May.
Science Explorers
Did you know you could make batteries from the fruit you keep in your kitchen? Designed to introduce students in grades four through six to the wonder of science, our Science Explorers Program encourages exploration through hands-on experiments using everyday materials. Through interaction and play, students learn the fundamental principles of general science, such as chemistry, biology, physics, and earth science.
Students in this program learn that science is fun and its concepts simple. Our hope is that they develop a love of science that will serve them well as they enter high school and set their sights on college.
Facilitated by MIT graduates, Science Explorers runs for five Tuesdays at the Fletcher-Maynard Academy in Cambridge.
Sample lesson plans:
- Chemistry and reaction: You are what you eat! Using basic chemistry, students find out what’s in their food by making a color-changing chemical reaction.
- Electricity: Zoom! Zoom! Students learn to build a powerful electromagnetic motor.
- Gas and pressure: Up, up, and away! Students use the power of air pressure to shoot a water bottle rocket over 100-feet high.
- Human molecules: Like a set of blueprints, DNA contains all the instruction every organism needs to live and grow. Students will construct DNA from LEGO bricks and learn how DNA serves as the building blocks of your body.
Future Engineers
Future Engineers gives students in grades seven and eight a chance to be inventors. Working in small teams, students find out what it’s like to be an engineer by researching, designing, prototyping, testing, and assembling a product they can use in their own home, such as a robot that sweeps dirty socks under the bed!
Based on the models and standards outlined in the Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework – which was created with input from leading engineers – the program teaches students to demonstrate and articulate the entire engineering design process. Students in this program draw upon their scientific knowledge and apply imagination, persistence, and ingenuity to create everyday devices.
Current progams:
- Need It, Think It, Build It: Mind Power: Students will explore and experiment with magnets, circuits, and brain imaging. Students will build an electromagnet and control a device using only their thoughts. Two trips to an MIT laboratory is also included! In partnership with MIT, the program runs for six Thursdays beginning in April.
Past programs:
- Need It, Think It, Build It: Space Exploration: In the Space Exploration program, students learn creative approaches to solving fun engineering problems. Example: How can a vehicle travel the vast distances between galaxies using a reasonable amount of time and resources?
- AirMail!: How do you design a catapult to launch a small wooden ball over a playground fence? Or a rubber ball over the roof of your house? Students in the AirMail! Program learn the physics and probability behind how catapults work. Working in teams, students design and build their own catapults and formulate hypotheses about the best ways to deliver packages of varying weights to a range of distances and heights. At the end of the program, students will compete to find out which design delivers packages with the greatest accuracy.
For more information about enrolling a student, volunteering, or donating to Tutoring Plus, contact us.