Activities
Interested in getting involved in education through Brown’s diverse K-12 programs? Browse or search for an activity to participate.
American Dance Legacy Initiative (ADLI) transforms how people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities experience dance through innovative research, impactful community engagement, and rigorous pre-professional apprenticeships. ADLI is housed at Brown's Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage to strengthen a shared commitment to public engagement with the arts and culture.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/public-humanities/american-dance-legacy-initiat…
Think Like an Archaeologist is a four classroom-session program, with an additional visit to the RISD Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, or the Rhode Island Historical Society's John Brown House Museum. The sessions introduce 6th grade Social Studies students to the whole process of archaeology, from choosing an excavation site and learning to dig, to analyzing and caring for artifacts. Each session is hands-on, led by faculty, staff, and doctoral students from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. This is a partnership program between Brown University’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, the RISD Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Rhode Island Historical Society for 6th grade Social Studies students in the Providence Public Schools.
https://sites.google.com/a/brown.edu/think-like-an-archaeologist/
ASaP was created in 2013 to integrate research methods from the arts, sciences, humanities, and social sciences, and to demonstrate the positive impact of the performing arts for people with neurological disorders. ASaP works with both medical and arts practitioners to foster creative and integrative health practices, advocating for the recognition of the value of the arts within a holistic healing approach.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/public-humanities/american-dance-legacy-initiat…
Local non-profit committed to inspiring urban youth for success in school and life through co-ed wrestling. Draws at-risk students into a positive after-school environment where they receive mandatory academic support, connect to strong mentors, engage in healthy physical activity, and learn about nutrition and general health and incentives to attend and succeed in school.
Provides students with an opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of local Providence men and women with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. Gives students an avenue to participate in fun and exciting events while also helping others; broadens awareness about people with disabilities and, with the help of students, continues the integration of those with disabilities into the community.
A curriculum that helps kids learn algebra as they program their own video games with deep ties to mathematics, physics and data science. During the 10-week classroom module, each student programs their own working game using key algebra concepts including variables, functions, and the Pythagorean theorem.
Quarknet is an initiative to involve high-school teachers and their students in state-of-the-art research that seeks to resolve some of the mysteries about the structure of matter and the fundamental forces of nature. It is supported by the National Science Foundation and the U. S. Department of Energy.
Brown student-athletes and coaches take part in Providence Public Schools' Reading Week activities, stopping by schools throughout the city to read books to elementary-age children. The annual event coincides with a nationwide initiative aimed at getting children more interested in reading.
Neuroscience outreach program for Rhode Island high school students. Brown students teach weekly classes from October through February based on a curriculum by the Society for Neuroscience. Classes prepare students for the Brown Brain Bee, a trivia competition held in February. Winner gets a $200 cash prize and advances to the National Brain Bee and potentially the International Brain Bee. The hope is that exposing students to neuroscience early inspires a lifelong interest in science and helps students choose colleges to suit their interests. We also hold special events, such as lab tours, throughout the year to connect students to brain science resources at Brown.
Brown Elementary Afterschool Mentoring (BEAM) provides after-school enrichment programming at William D'Abate Elementary School in inner-city Providence. Nearly 100 volunteers create and implement unique lesson plans each week to teach a variety of subjects to K-5 students.
https://brown.givepulse.com/group/120739-Community-Corps-BEAM
BRYTE works one-on-one with refugee youth grades K-12 in the home. We support the self-empowerment of refugee youth through providing academic tutoring and mentoring, as well as fostering community among students who share experiences of settlement in the United States.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/science-center/outreach/science-prep/
Brown Summer High School (BSHS) is a professional development (PD) program for graduate student training and teacher preparation that also provides summer enrichment for Providence Public School students and students in the Greater Providence area. Local teachers serve as mentors and participate in the methods classes for their own continuing education and PD.
BRUSHE is a student-led, student-run sexual health education program. We teach weekly workshops to students in Providence middle schools, giving them a safe space to discuss sexual health, relationships, body image, and other relevant topics. We aim to supplement the school’s existing sexual education program in a way that encourages students to ask questions that will inform their decisions.
https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/sarah-doyle-center/brown-university-s…
BruNotes is a student-run organization at Brown University whose goal is to share music with low-income students throughout the Providence area. We hope to bring this universal language to every student with whom we work and to help them develop an interest in music that nurtures dedication, responsibility, creativity, and passion.
Our completely student-run organization works by raising funds and awareness to help better the lives of orphaned children still in China. China Care Brown works closely with the China Care Foundation to fund surgeries for medically needy orphans and donates to One Sky Foundation to continue its mission to fund Chinese orphan surgeries. Our program also connects Brown University students with Chinese adoptees in the local Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts area through cultural programs and activities.
The Choices Program draws on scholarship from Brown University to produce innovative curricula and videos that make contested international issues accessible, engaging, and relevant to secondary school audiences. Also offers professional development workshops for educators from across the nation.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/cognitive-linguistic-psychological-sciences/home
The College Advising Corps (CAC) at Brown University is a full-time AmeriCorps program that seeks to increase the number of first-generation college-bound, low-to-moderate income and underrepresented high school students who persist in college and earn bachelor's degrees. To achieve this mission, recent college graduates serve as full-time College Advisers in 15 under-served high schools and 6 school districts across Rhode Island.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/swearer/programs/college-advising-corps…
More than 500 Brown University students participate in Community Corps, leading after-school enrichment programs, connecting health resources to patients, working with adult learners, providing one-on-one tutoring, assisting classroom teachers, supporting and advocating for people who are homeless, and and engaging in other ways. Strong, long-term relationships between the Swearer Center, Brown University students, and community partner organizations are an essential component of this program.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/swearer/programs/community-corps/86
Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences’ Science-Teaching and Education Program (DEEP STEP) is an outreach program that works in partnership with Providence Public Schools’ Department (PPSD) to develop and bring Earth Science lessons into local elementary classrooms. We develop quarter-long, multi-lesson Earth Science Modules for grades 2-5 that are aligned with grade-specific Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and are centered on inquiry-driven science learning. Our volunteers co-teach the Modules with participating teachers in three Providence public schools (Vartan Gregorian, Pleasant View and Martin Luther King).
The Engaged Scholars Program (ESP) enables students who are passionate about communities and the challenges they face to design courses of study and action as part of their concentration requirements. Through guided coursework, advising and hands-on experience working with community partners, students in ESP are able to contextualize abstract theories, challenge assumptions and develop skills that prepare them for lives of effective action. Students who complete the program receive an academic transcript notation as Engaged Scholars.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/swearer/programs/engaged-scholars-progr…
English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) is a student-led group that is part of Community Corps, a program of the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University. ESOL partners with the Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative (RIFLI) to address the marginalizing effects of language barriers by providing English language and literacy classes to adult immigrants in the Providence community. Our members teach and facilitate English classes at William D'Abate Elementary School in the Olneyville neighborhood or at the MET School in the South-side of Providence.
https://brown.givepulse.com/group/124225-Community-Corps-ESOL
Generation Citizen (founded by Brown alumn Scott Warren ‘09) empowers young people to become engaged and effective citizens through direct political action. Through a skills-based curriculum delivered during the regular school day, students work with local leaders to fix problems in their communities. Through this real-world experience, our teens learn how to be active participants in our country's democracy. Brown volunteers (Democracy Coaches) teach bi-weekly classes in local middle and high schools. They work with their students to identify an important issue they face in their communities, then teach them the advocacy skills to make change on that issue. At the end of the semester, students present their Action Projects to local officials and community members at a Civics Day event at the Rhode Island State House.
Once a year, German classes from two local high schools are invited to a day at Brown. The Brown German Club and Departmental Undergraduate Groups (DUG) host a mostly German-language tour of the campus, a scavenger hunt, a quiz bowl, and a visit to one of our museums.
The Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics is a National Science Foundation funded mathematics research institute located at Brown. The Institute welcomes young women from high schools across Rhode Island to a highly subsidized summer math camp called GirlsGetMath@ICERM. The program seeks to inspire young women to love math in hopes that they will go on to consider careers in mathematics, computation, and quantitative fields.