Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation

This project will allow the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center to continue the Museum's highly successful Pathways Project, focused on deepening middle-school students' understandings of and interest in science by engaging them in hands-on, field based experiences in archaeology, which began over two years ago with the assistance of a grant from the National Science Foundation.  Key elements of the initiative include a two week-long summer programs for Pequot children and their non-Native peers, grades 5-6, which use hands-on, inquiry-based approaches to involve them in ongoing research programs in archaeology and field ecology; collaboration between scientists and educators in the Tribe's Natural Resource Department, and scientists and educators at the Museum; staff capacity building in the area of informal science education both at the Museum and with other Tribal scientists and educators; and formative evaluation of the project's different components to assess the work of the partnership and identify areas for improvement, to determine whether program staff feel more confident and able to develop and deliver science learning programs, and to explore the effectiveness of the summer programs for participants.