Two trends are apparent in the historical data on our science clubs: we
are offering more minds-on science activities and many more of them are
done within the context of long-term relationships. The same group of
volunteers works with the same group of children for an extended period
of time. The target for clubs is generally eight meetings per semester
and four-six per summer.
As the chart to the right illustrates, our number of clubs went from 5, four years ago, to 17 this past year. In 1995-96, two were of an extended nature and three met only once or twice; in 1998-99, 15 (that is, 88% of the total) offered a continuing personal relationship. We are practicing what we preach about the importance of such long-term commitments.
Because of this, it is difficult to graph the numbers we are so often
asked for. The charts to the left and below are two ways of looking at
the same data. The upper one illustrates overall numbers for our
hands-on science programs: counting each participant at each session.
Since the same groups met several times, however, these numbers can be
deceptively high. The lower chart shows numbers of participants when
each individual was counted only once, regardless of how often each
participated. Since many volunteers—and even more
children—were repeaters, these numbers can be deceptively low. One
child, for example, may have participated in a fall-semester club, an
after-school community center club, a spring semester club, and a summer
club. We are unable to conceive of a clear way to combine both kinds of
data, so we've simply put them in two formats. The "truth" lies
somewhere in the middle!
