Our Harambee After School Academy

The Harambee After School Academy (HASA), in partnership with 21^st 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.

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.

Some our community partners include, The Big Picture Alliance, Free Haven Farms and the Philadelphia Clef Club.

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Harambee Institute students are provided the unique opportunity to extend their academic day in the Harambee After School Academy (HASA). With a focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Science) students engage in an innovative and robust program that gives them hands-on learning opportunities in these four areas. Below are descriptions of some of the programs HASA students experience.

Programming

Drone Junior Pilot Certificate Program

In this after-school program students learn a wide array of topics surrounding the use of aerial vehicles also known as drones. Students learn to safely fly, maintain, race and record aerial video with drones. Sessions include a discussion on a STEM related topic, as drafted below, and allow each individual to fly the drone. Each week, the students are given the opportunity to demonstrate a competency and receive credit(s) towards a final Junior Pilot Certificate. To do so safely, the students work in teams of 2 or 3 throughout the term.

Robotics (HASA Maroboti)

As a participant in the robotics curriculum, students develop their STEM skills through the design and building out of robots. Students are given the opportunity to compete in city, regional, and national competitions.

Lego First League

MATE Competitions

Urban Gardening (a partnership with Free Haven Farms)

Urban gardening is the process of growing plants of all types and varieties in an urban environment. Urban gardening, which is also known as urban horticulture or urban agriculture, encompasses several unique gardening concepts, including: Container gardening: Common for people with small patios, yards, or balconies.

Learn more at https://freehaveneducationalfarms.com

Video Production – The Big Picture Alliance

The Big Picture Alliance

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.
HASA is staffed with committed educators, highly skilled program facilitators and a dynamic team of program directors that are dedicated to ensuring that Watoto are exposed to all that is available in the youth STEM arena. In conjunction with the STEM programming HASA also provides the academic support necessary to improve achievement both in and out of the classroom. The HASA schedule provides a structure that allows students to receive homework support as well as grade level instruction in math and literacy in an effort to reinforce and enrich skills being taught within their regular school day.

We encourage you to check the website regularly as it will be updated monthly with new programming and pictures/videos of student engagement. The site will also post announcements along with a calendar of events for watoto and wazazi to take part in.