Young Guru Academy (YGA)

According to the Statistics Institute of Turkey, 50.9% of the households in Turkey don’t have internet access. Only 17.6% of them have access to a computer, and 23.2% of them have limited access to television. There’s a gap between the privileged private school students versus the students in underserved schools located outside of Turkey’s metropolitan area. This gap has increased even more with the onset of the pandemic. We believe that this gap can be closed with the latest technology and science.

We transformed science sessions, carried out by YGA volunteers, from offline to online during COVID-19. Internet access was provided to children with the support of teachers and families. Children attended online sessions at 2-week intervals. During the sessions, they talked about both scientific & awareness-raising issues, and conducted science experiments at home. We have reached over 300 children through online sessions so far. Now, we want to scale this project up with an online platform so that we can reach more disadvantaged children in Turkey and in Kenya with STEM Education.

Based on an evaluation questionnaire, filled out by more than 300 children, the scores for the quality and engagement of online science sessions, indicated very high and positive results.

I learned new things from science experiments at Twing | 4.7
Scientific experiments at Twing were fun. | 4.6
I watched my other friends do the experiments and learned new things from them at Twing. | 4,6
I learned new things during online science sessions. | 4,8
I discovered that science is not difficult thanks to online science sessions. | 4,5
I started asking more questions after this program. | 4.4
I realized that I can develop useful solutions to the problems around me. | 4,6
I started using what I learned to solve the problem around me. | 4.6