DC TRUST Guide 1023 - Children & Youth Investment Trust ...

. Program interconnects separate math concepts and skills (e.g. measurement and geometry).
c. Activities provide a balanced emphasis on the recall of facts and formulas and the use
of concepts and problem solving.
d. Program actively engages young people in exploring, hypothesizing, analyzing and
applying mathematics in a real world context.
e. Program provides young people with math applications that correspond to practical
tasks and personal life (e.g. understanding interest rates, reading statistics and graphs,
managing technology, budgeting, balancing checkbooks, comparison shopping).
f. Program supports math understanding by using concrete learning materials, manipulatives,
appropriate measurement tools, as well as calculators and computers when possible.
g. Programs give young people the opportunity to demonstrate understanding of math
concepts through speaking and writing. (e.g. demonstrations, presentations, games and
contests, puzzles, riddles).
h. Program attempts to connect math skills and concepts to activities not traditionally thought
of as mathematical.
6. Program provides opportunities for participants to develop scientific reasoning
and skill building.
a. Program encourages questioning, hypothesis, research, experimentation and reflection as
means of finding solutions.
b. Program encourages young people to explore how things work.
c. Program engages young people in hands-on projects that involve inquiry.
d. Activities draw a connection between science and everyday life.
e. Program promotes a thoughtful relationship with our natural environment.
f. Program introduces young people to scientific innovators, their achievements and
processes.
g. Program provides and monitors a safe environment in which to do science.
h. Program provides adequate materials and resources for science activities.
i. Program attempts to connect science and inquiry skills to activities not traditionally
thought of as scientific.
7. Program provides opportunities for participants to connect social studies/
historical events and ideas to their current lives and visions of the future.
a. Program provides opportunities for participants to make a connection between their
own lives and other people, times, places and events.
b. Program provides opportunities for service learning projects and activism.
c. Staff draws connections from things that have taken place in the past to things going
on now.
d. Program encourages young people to consider events in historical, societal, and
cultural contexts.
e. Program helps young people explore and discuss what it means to be a member of a
community along with the rights and responsibilities that go along with it.
f. Program provides opportunities for young people to explore other ways of life,
value their own and consider connections between the two.
Field Guide to OST Best Practices / High-Interest, Hands-On Activities / 16