4-H Farm Center at Auer Farm
Grades: 5-6
Participating Districts:  Avon, Burlington, Hartford and Simsbury

In this 15-day program at Auer Farm in Bloomfield, students identify various foods and follow their cycle form the field to the table.  Through direct contact with the farm animals, they learn the interconnectedness between what the animals provide for people and what people must provide for the animals.  Students also compare farming locally to farms in the lands of their ancestors.  The program runs for four hours each day.

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Choice Summer Academy
Grades: 1-8
Participating Districts:  All CREC Choice communities

The Choice Summer Academy provides academic remedial support to select Choice students and students from other districts to bolster their success in suburban school environments.  The carefully designed program brings together the most academically needy students and offers individualized assistance in basic reading, language arts and math skills.  One feature of the Choice Summer Academy is the use of the “Voyager” curriculum, which teaches and develops basic skills within an exciting and highly motivating learning environment.  In addition to the focus on the development and enhancement of basic skills, the Choice Summer Academy includes daily activities that facilitate the development of the students’ positive social skills.

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City Slickers
Grades: 5-12
Participating Districts:  Bristol, Hartford, Plymouth and Wolcott

City Slickers is a program that teaches students about horses and riding skills, while developing academic and social skills within a diverse group of peers.  Students are grouped in ethnically, racially and economically diverse teams.  The small teams build and reinforce reading, writing, math, science and computer skills, as they develop other basic skills of trust, empathy, communication, negotiation, compromise and teamwork.

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Discovery Center
Grades: 4-6
Participating Districts:  CREC member districts

This three-year program partners urban and suburban schools in grades 4, 5 and 6 to enhance student diversity, raise student awareness of diversity issues and to increase student motivation and skills through the use of new and prior knowledge.  Students receive pen pals at their partner schools to communicate with online and through partner school visits.  The program for fourth-grade students culminates with a day trip to a camp for team-building exercises.  Fifth-graders spend a week overnight at the camp, focusing on a common curriculum unit shared by both schools.  For sixth graders, Discover Center concludes with a three-day residential camp program focusing on social action. For more information, please visit the Discovery Center's web site.

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EQUAL Summer Program

Grades: 5-10
Participating Districts:  CREC member districts
EQUAL (Educational Quality through Understanding And Learning) provides high-quality academic enrichment within a racially, ethnically and socio-economically diverse learning environment.  The curriculum is grade-specific and contains comprehensive, yet flexible activities to supplement skills taught in home schools.  Based on state curriculum frameworks, these enrichment and assessment activities are designed to reinforce the skills assessed on the CMT and CAPT instruments.  The EQUAL Program provides successful bridges between urban and suburban communities, introducing students from both settings to each other and teaching important social, academic, vocational and lifelong skills.
Download the EQUAL 2008 Application
Download the EQUAL 2008 Brochure

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Frontiers in Science and Mathematics
Grades: 6-8
Participating Districts: Avon, Bloomfield, Bolton, Canton, Ellington, Farmington, Glastonbury, Granby, Hartford, Manchester, New Britain, Newington, Rocky Hill, Simsbury, Southington, Suffield, Tolland, Vernon, Wethersfield, and Windsor

The Frontiers in Science: Career Explorations Program of the Greater Hartford Academy of Mathematics and Sciences is designed for grades 6-8 and helps to address the critical need to build student awareness of career paths in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Students rotate through focused strands on science, engineering and technology, and mathematics is fundamental to each strand. Located at the Learning Corridor in Hartford, students have access to state-of-the-art science labs and equipment for their research and investigations.  For more information contact Kenny O’Konis at 860-757-6331 or Gloria Berrios at 860-757-6316; visit the Greater Hartford Academy of Math and Science website for further information.

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Summer Musical Theater Workshop
Grades: 8-10
Participating Districts:  CREC member districts

The Summer Musical Theater Workshop at the CREC Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts is an intense, six-week theater experience.   The approximately 50 culturally diverse students in the program are from a variety of school districts.  Each participant auditions for the program in the early spring.  Theater productions require full cooperation from the cast and crew, and are an excellent venue for learning to work together as a team – and for promoting multicultural and multiracial understanding.  The students rotate through three different classes, typically singing, acting and dance.  Individual voice lessons and group art projects are also part of the program.  Students will be exposed to the contributions of artists of a variety of backgrounds and cultures, both historical and contemporary.  Exercises affirm students’ racial, ethnic and economic diversity; promote cooperative group interaction; and develop and refine performance abilities. Click for more information about the program.

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Metacomet Ridge Interdistrict Academy
Grades: 7-12
Participating Districts:  Enfield, Farmington, Hartford, New Britain, Simsbury, Suffield, West Hartford and Windsor

In this program, students from a wide variety of racial, ethnic and sociological backgrounds collaborate on an interdisciplinary, geographic study of the Metacomet Ridge.  Through field studies, interschool visits and exchanges of information through technology, students acquire highly technical scientific skills and use technology and scientific equipment to collect information.  Teams of students collect, organize and analyze data to produce reports for the Connecticut State Department of Environmental Protection and to develop presentations about their findings.  This program builds critical thinking, technology competency, scientific understanding, scientific research and many other skills.

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Young Educators Society
Grades: 7-12
Participating Districts:  CREC member districts

The Young Educators Society (YES) is a teacher-mentored, club program that aims to interest middle and high school students – particularly minorities – in becoming teachers.  YES members learn to teach younger students to read, attend regular meetings at their home schools and are eligible to attend interdistrict workshops, the Connecticut annual convention, the Summer Institutes for Future Teachers and, possibly, the Future Educators of America national convention, which brings together future teachers from all over the United States.  Many YES club members use the skills they learn in the literacy trainings to tutor younger students in elementary schools in their cities or towns; to complete mini-internships in schools; to practice the development of lesson p lans under the tutelage of their mentor teacher; and to assist classroom teachers.  The literacy workshops give the YES students a real taste of the teacher preparation they will encounter at the college/university level.

Club Activities
Expenditure Report
YES Club Member Student Journal
Click here to download the request for funds document
Click here to download the request for funds guidelines
YES Final Assessment


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