The Harambee After School Academy (H.A.S.A.) provides academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours for children, particularly students who attend high-poverty and low-performing schools. The program helps students meet state and local student standards in core academic subjects, with STEAM based activities available to students 1st-8th grade.

The goal of the HASA is to provide the students and parents of Harambee Institute of Science and Technology with an organized, educational, and recreational, after-school, and summer program. HASA’s baseline curriculum is fully aligned to the core Math/ Literacy instruction with a focus on extending and enriching such instruction through STEAM activities. The program offerings include but are not limited to daily academic support and enrichment in the Math and ELA core areas, music instruction, urban agriculture, drone engineering and flying, coding, computer science, robotics, and filmmaking. HASA is held five afternoons per week during September through June. After-school hours 3:45 PM - 5:50 PM. The summer program is a program held in the months of June and July. It is available to students who qualify. Summer hours 9 AM - 12 PM

The Harambee After School Academy (HASA), in partnership with 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC), helps to support approximately 250 students in the 1st through 8th grades, five days a week. The mission of HASA is to engage students in a comprehensive opportunity that is dedicated to providing social, cultural and academic enrichment to the students and parents of the immediate community. All program activities are supported by a 21st CCLC competitive grant funded by the PA Department of Education through the U.S. Department of Education.

As a science and technology institute, our focus is always on STEAM. That’s science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. Our focus is also the same during HASA. Students engage in an innovative and robust program, that gives them hands-on learning opportunities in these areas.

Urban Gardening

Our Urban Gardening course takes a look at the many aspects of urban agriculture that allows for food production in our area. With the help of community business Free Haven Farms, students are trained in various organic and sustainable growing techniques.

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Clef Club

As part of the STEAM program, the Philadelphia Clef Club provides instruction to teach students best performance practices on percussion, string, and woodwind instruments. African drumming, recorders, and violin are just a few of the instruments that students have the opportunity to explore! The sessions conclude with a student performance!

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Robotics (HASA Maroboti)

When students participate in the robotics curriculum, they develop their STEAM skills through the design and building of robots. They are even given the opportunity to compete in city, regional, and national competitions, like the LEGO FIRST competition. Early concepts of robotics engineering are a great way to teach innovation and support creativity in our students.

Lego First League
MATE Competitions

Drones

Over in our makerspace, the future has hit HASA! Our Drone program, 3D printing, and mixed reality club all take place under one roof of excitement and development! Our drone program gives students the chance to fly, maintain, race and record aerial video with drones. Sessions include a discussion on a STEM related topic and allows each student to fly the drone. Each week, the students are given the opportunity to work towards receiving a final Junior Pilot Certificate!

3d printing

The HASA 3DP Club will explore 3D design software, concepts and materials. In this club students learn how to find, design and print 3D objects. They will understand why 3D Printing is projected to become a trillion dollar industry and change how companies prototype and manufacture products. Finally, they will create their own 3D objects to take home.

Nutrition

Nutrition is the science of foods- how our bodies process/digest them, why we need nutrients and how to make health-based decisions. In this course, we learn that we are never too young to learn how to make healthy food choices and that food science can be fun! By focusing on simple to grasp concepts, such as following MyPlate and eating a rainbow, and providing instruction for hands-on activities, students in grades 1 through 5 can learn components of nutrition science while being actively engaged.

Activities can span multiple educational modalities such as language skills, reading/writing, math, science and art. Examples of such activities include reading Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, then discussing why we should try new foods and how variety can benefit us; Experimenting with recipes such as making edible playdough and ants on a log; Reading food Labels and calculating calories.

Turning my Legos Creation into a Robot

Learning to code through LEGO® gives watoto the opportunity to use a physical problem-solving tool in their coding exercises. Their code comes to life in ways they can see, hear, touch and even chase across the room.

Give it Life

The Arduino hardware and software will allow watoto to interact with buttons, LEDs, motors, speakers, GPS units, cameras, the Internet, and even your smart-phone or your TV! Arduino hardware and software was designed for artists, designers, hobbyists, hackers, newbies, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

I Built This City

Watoto will become familiar with the open-ended city building computer game series using SimCity. Although this is a “game” it will gives Watoto the technological and creative base of the engineering and design process. In this game the player is given the task of building a city while also managing, developing and maintaining a budget that must be followed in order to complete the task.

Our Harambee after school academy