Ventajas
I love working with children and watching them learn new things. Science Adventures started back in 1978 as a summer program for kids from k-6th grade. Over time it became a year round program that offered hands on science projects for kids k-6th grade. They offered after school programs, classroom visitations for both the teachers and studen-body, assembly programs, as well as the summer programs. We had a non-profit division that would give away free camp scholarships to the summer programs. There is nothing like seeing a child work for a whole week building a robot or rocket and then seeing it walk across the floor or shoot up into the sky at the end of the week. With the knowledge of how it works and the science behind it. Most of the little ones can't even tie there own shoes or button up their pants but they can tell you who Newton is and his three laws and name all 6 simple machines. The best part is after the kids get older and go off to Junior High and have to call you to tell you they aced a test because they could remember all of the elements from the periodical table because of what they learned doing experiment at summer camp.
Desventajas
Science Adventures is now owned by Knowledge Learning Center and all they care about is making money. The kids are last on their list. It is money, money,money and oh yeah money! As of September of 2007 the old Science Adventures was now a division of a KLC or Knowledge Learning Corp. The first thing they did is close down the warehouse and said that S & S will be much cheaper to use costing about 30 employees their jobs. The next thing they did is shut down the staffing office and corporate office and out source to other companies. Costing another 60 people out of their job. The remaining instructors who do the (as they put it -Grunt work) or work with the children are still working. We now have to phone in our hours but never get a print out of our time to see if it is correct. We get paid on a pay card that charges us to get our cash out. (This is our paycheck that we are now paying for) They took all the class room visitations and assembly programs away form the current program costing all the instructor to go part time. They hire us and fire us every Sept. and every June on paper so they do not have to give us any benefits. They say it is due to the school program is now over and the summer program is now starting or the summer is now ending and school is now starting which are different pay scales so they must hire and fire us on paper to keep the records straight. What a crock. They have done away with the non-profit sector and have a dummy non-profit for tax purpose. The cost for a week at summer camp jumped form 198.00 for a week to 307.00 a week. Yes! That is a 109.00 increase in the cost for a week of summer camp. No the instructor did not get a raise most of us have been working for 10-12 per hour for the last 3 years. With the economy the way it is they should re-think their prices, Science Adventures use to be all about the kids now it is all about the money, Too Bad!