This sums up what got us started from an interview- I just did with the City of Jersey City “Our projects are based around a community issue, almost always environmental, and related to something with water that's involving STEM activities: science, technology, engineering and math. Our goals are to provide a team environment for students engaged in STEM that often do not fit the typical athletic type and to let them explore, engage, and learn in nature in our densely populated city, that allows children very little access to nature at their own houses, neighborhoods, and schools.

Project Reservoir started about 6 years ago. We all started working together and going to a local abandoned municipal reservoir. That's where it started: a classroom of kids, our highest achievers. We entered the Disney Planet Challenge. We were state champs the first year. The next year, we won it. So, the kids got a trip to Disney Land.

It snowballed from there. We started looking into what other types of science competitions we could enter. We came up with the idea to form teams. So Project Reservoir is now team-based. We've been pretty successful. We've won some sort of national award every year. Our most recent award was the EPA Presidential Environmental Youth award for Region 2 last year.

Project Reservoir is outside of the curriculum. It's an enrichment program. A lot of the students are getting ready to go to high school. That's when they need to make some decision on a career path. The reservoir is our learning lab.

The “Stormies” STEM team is designing a storm drain filter that uses hydrophobic materials that can filter water, doesn't impede flow, but can still capture motor oils and any type of petroleum products. Our plastics team is also designing a filter system for washing machines. Plastic microfibers from washing machines get into the ocean and can harm fish. A big part of our project for each team is also maintaining social media, a website and public outreach by attending community events (farmers market at local park, concerts in park, community celebrations with a booth, and through educational activities for the public at the reservoir.

We have a good group of 4 teachers. We are a team as well. It’s Tuesdays and Thursdays and some Saturdays. There’s 62 students presently. Eight teams. We had well over 100 students apply this year.

Some of our science projects don’t just stop in June, especially when you have living plants and animals. So it’s a big sharing effort to keep the project going." In addition we fund our teams by getting community sponsors just as a baseball team gets sponsors for little league. We attend local events at our city parks, that are often walking distance from our school. This is a key factor for community engagement in that students are able to get there on their own-an advantage of living in a densely populated city-things are close by and often walking distance.

For us (teachers and school administrators) it has been an advantage to having students from Latin American or immigrant backgrounds and specifically Latinas in that they have more time, than the traditional upper middle class child, to devote their energies to these projects (these are not children who typically run from piano to soccer to a tutor and almost all of them never go to summer enrichment camps). I have also found parents from foreign cultures allow for more teacher autonomy in activities- by having in school lab activities outside of the curriculum on a daily basis before school or even during lunch, it adds validity to the project/gives students a sense of being on a team (family) to care for the living things in the lab or in the field. The living aspects of our project draw in students and families (we often have parents at our reservoir when we are working there or helping out at free community events) We try to be as flexible as possible also by allowing students to bring their younger siblings, whenever possible. Early on one of the most important things to break down this potential barrier of family reluctance was by allowing leadership by the student (especially by giving academically advanced girls a chance to lead/teach in a classroom or at a city public event) We had summer school and Saturday STEM camps in the fall taught by our students (flipped classroom) and this chance to be involved in a team in leadership role without family cost filled a niche that families needed for their children. Check out some yesterdays work at the Reservoir to understand a little bit what our students do at the reservoir- maintaining trails through phragmites designed and built by students at our school (follow this link to look at some of their work from a previous STEM team Phrag Attack http://phragmiteattack.weebly.com/phragmites-maze.html). This community ownership and leadership aspect is what breaks down barriers.