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Hi Jonah -

To add my voice to the chorus, I've also done work in Boys & Girls Clubs.
We were funded by NASA to do a "demonstration program" at 3 different
configurations of afterschool programs, including a network of 5 Boys and
Girls clubs.  In our case, we were training the instructors at the B&G clubs
to do the instruction rather, but here's what worked for us for assessment.
1) We built the "science club" into a program the B&G club had started for
kids identified as at risk of not advancing to the next grade.  The B&G club
was trying to get the kids to commit to coming every day and participating
in homework help and enrichment before playing basketball. NASA Science
happened one day a week, one measure of our success was that remained the
highest attended day of the week for four of the club houses.
2) We built data collection activities into the activities for the kids.  We
had several points where the main activity was a group "science talk"
(similar to Karen Gallas' elementary school technique described in her book
"Talking their way into science".  We gave the kids a question or problem
and had them explain and debate their thinking.  Then, we did it primarily
as an open-ended research project.  Now, we are working on using those
conversations to both provide practice and assess progress in the groups
ability to use evidence in explanation. By doing a "group" assessment, we
get around the individual attendance fluctuations.
3) In a later phase of the original project, we did pre and post interviews
with individual kids.  In our case, we were looking at how their ability to
interpret images of other planets had improved. We had them look at two
images and tell us what they noticed in each.  
4) Another goal of our project was to raise the comfort level of the
afterschool staff in leading science activities.  We did pre & post
interviews with them as well about their attitudes towards science.  We also
looked informally at how many added additional science content on their own,
or expanded the use of the activities to other groups of kids as another
measure of success.

Good luck!  
If anyone is interested in more about the research project we did for NASA
and the NASA curriculum we adapted for after-school as a result, you can
find it on NASA's informal ed website at the link below.
http://education.nasa.gov/divisions/informal/overview/R_NASA_and_Afterschool
_Programs.html

---

Gretchen Walker
Project Manager
Education Department
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West @ 79th Street
New York, NY 10024
212-313-7495

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