Scaling-up the Building Computers, Families, and Communities Program©: lessons learned by Texas Tech College of Engineering

An after-school program developed by Texas Tech University College of Engineering establishes a practical means for getting seventh through ninth-graders excited about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Several offerings of the program suggest that this program has significant potential to attract students from populations traditionally under represented in STEM disciplines into educational and career paths in these fields. A pilot study, conducted with 16 at-risk students from low-income families, their parents, and seven of their teachers during the Spring 2000 semester demonstrated a high degree of positive potential. As a result, a number of entities in the Lubbock community formed a consortium to significantly extend the scope of the program by offering it to 100 area families in 2001. This article provides a history of development of the program, an overview of the curriculum, the initial results from the consortium offering to 100 families, and plans to further increase the scale of the program by disseminating it to other communities, and plans to make the program sustainable over time.