Overview
For three decades, IDA has worked with the Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) to tutor, mentor and support students through STEM-related events. Our goal is to develop and sustain an educational outreach program at IDA that takes advantage of IDA’s expertise and resources to aid students and teachers in ACPS, especially those in greatest need for the types of contributions we are so well-suited to provide.
Tutoring
IDA has provided tutoring in different ways throughout the years. We currently tutor at the main Alexandria City High School campus and at the Minnie Howard sub-school. In this capacity, we assist teachers in after-school tutoring clubs for students. The school offers after-school clubs with coaches, prizes, snacks and tutoring for students who participate.
Science: Unrestricted
IDA also hosts its annual Science: Unrestricted event at our Potomac Yard facility in Alexandria, Virginia. For more than a decade, we have partnered with the ACPS to coordinate and execute the event.
The event helps students understand that science is:
- Ubiquitous to the human experience, making it relevant to almost everything we do.
- Helpful in their everyday lives as citizens, to the extent they understand it.
- Interesting and fun.
- Something they can do and even excel at.
- An exciting career choice that is in the realm of possibility to anyone willing to do the work.
We provide an event that:
- Encourages students to discuss scientific subjects with each other.
- Prompts further discussion with their teachers.
- Initiates discussions about science and STEM with their parents and other family members.
- Provides some initial ideas about subject areas they may want to pursue for personal or eventually professional expertise.
The event includes exhibits by members of our staff, invited government agencies and nonprofits, and a few students from the ACPS school system. We strongly emphasize hands-on exhibits. The students range from kindergarten through 12th grade.
IDA staff members have produced many excellent exhibits over the years: an exhibition bee hive, model rocketry, numerous exhibits on topics related to energy and magnetism, and even a home-made telescope. Alexandria City High School students from ACPS often exhibit robots, as well as the occasional science fair project. In the past, we have had presenters from NASA, the George Mason University physics department, the National Institutes of Health, the American Statistical Association, the Department of Energy, the Naval Research Laboratory and many others.
Science: Unrestricted includes a science-themed musical exhibit and a drawing for science-related prizes, such as microscopes, telescopes, tablet computers and cameras.