Our Blog
School Site Spotlight: It Takes a Village and learning life skills through STEM!
Watch to hear from facilitators Ms. Debbie and Mr. T about their afterschool program in gardening at It Takes a Village Leadership Academy in Bronzeville. Students are not only learning about plants...
Meet Senior Program Manager Amber Neal!
Amber Neal started working at Project Exploration in June of last year. And with over 10 years of experience working with youth in Chicago, she has a deep understanding and passion for creating pathways. “We’re really trying to build this pipeline of pathways for our...
STEAMbassador Wrapped Fall 2025
This fall we had our STEAMbassadors fill out a brief survey asking them what schools and communities they represented and how they felt they had been impacted by the program. Here is what they said below! Who are our STEAMbassadors? [gallery size="full"...
A Life of Service and Channeling Passion through Coaching
Senior Programs Manager Luis Bermudez wants non-profit, especially out-of-schooltime (OST) organizations to know that passion goes hand-in-hand with practice. And this pairing can be strengthened by mentorship and coaching. “You can have passion, and that's great, but...
Coding and Architecture: STEAMbassador and YREP participant Luis Avila is Using his Education to Enhancing Students’ Learning
“I didn’t think I would like coding as much as I did. I literally just went because it was like a nice opportunity,” said STEAMbassador and Year-Round Youth Employment Program (YREP) participant Luis Avila. “I wanted to teach the kids something new.” On October 20th,...
Little Sisters in the Stars — The Future is Now!
The Stars Are Already Here ✨ We always tell our students to shoot for the stars — but what if the stars are already among us? Meet Mariah and Niy’lah, two fifth graders from our Little Sisters 4 Science (LS4S) program who...
Getting to the Cheese: BBC Coding Mice Photo Essay
One thing about computers, they’re complicated. And understanding coding, the language of these machines, for many is too daunting. But not if you’re curious, and especially if you’re not alone! In our first weeks of fall Program here at Project Exploration, our...
Breaking Ground on Building Block Club: A Q&A with Our STEAMbassadors
For this month’s feature, we wanted to highlight our Building Block Club (BBC) Program and two STEAMbassadors that are leading this program for the first time, this fall. Jessica Cervantes, new to teaching, used to be a...
Sense of Belonging and STEM After-School Programs
By Program Evaluations Manager Miguel Angel Vazquez III Illustration by Benjamin Cummings for Project Exploration. As human beings, we naturally seek a sense of belonging within the social systems we are a part of. This need is particularly salient within educational...