Lights Off for Hands On Science

Nonprofit After-School Program Ending Its 27-Year Run

Hannah Fresquez, left, gives rock samples to Nicole Spiezio for their last Hands On Science after-school project at Woodlin Elementary in Silver Spring. (By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)

Hands On Science, a Silver Spring nonprofit that once served 40,000 children a year across the country with after-school lessons in soapmaking and the properties of prisms, is shutting its doors after 27 years.

Founder Phyllis Katz called it "recreational science." Over the course of an eight-week session, students might learn to upend a cup of water without spilling, to separate salt and pepper with electricity and to operate a turbine. Classes were led by parents and certified teachers, retirees and graduate students.

The program is a victim of societal change, officials said. They cited growing competition among after-school offerings, many of which, unlike Hands On Science, could justify themselves by showing student gains on standardized reading and math tests. And there is the increase in two-income families, who build their schedules around child care and have no use for enrichment lessons offered just once a week.

"You know, the country was a very different place 25 years ago," Katz said.

The program exits as Maryland and the rest of the nation prepare for mandatory testing in science, a requirement under the No Child Left Behind Act as of 2008. Many elementary schools offer half as much science instruction as they did before the law was enacted five years ago. Katz said she fears that Maryland, at least, might have lost "a whole generation" of future scientists.

Yesterday at Woodlin Elementary School, near the Hands On Science headquarters, students gathered rocks and buried tiny artifacts beneath layers of dirt and moss as they bid the program farewell.

"Does everyone have some dirt?" teacher Rich Swanson asked.

Students mixed the dirt with shells and pebbles, fashioning a colorful, if slightly grubby, take-home project, a model of what is known in archaeological circles as a "midden," or household dump.

Michael Lichtenstein, father of 6-year-old Woodlin kindergartner Stephanie, said he had enrolled her in several science sessions and had no idea that this would be the last.

"I think it satisfied her intellectual curiosity, her interest in science, beyond what she's getting in class," he said, as he waited for her to emerge from the one-hour lesson with her midden in tow. "I think she's very energized in it."

Katz said she started an after-school science class at a Montgomery County school in 1980 after returning from a sabbatical in Ontario, where her family had become "enchanted" with the touchy-feely interactivity of the Ontario Science Centre.

The program expanded across Montgomery County with help from the county PTA, which had its own nonprofit corporation devoted to the sort of fee-based enrichment classes that Katz was offering. At the start, fees were $15 or $20 for eight classes, Katz said, and are now in the $50 range.