Villanova Magic School
The Peer Interdisciplinary Volunteer Outreach with Theatre and Science (PIVOTS) project addresses the urgent need for enrichment activities that encourage children, 
especially underrepresented minorities, to pursue science, engineering, and mathematics careers. The Science & Theatre Magic Program, is a service learning summer program of multidisciplinary, magic-themed science exploration, where faculty mentor teens, who in turn create and stage a fantastic day-long adventure that brings younger children from Philadelphia by train to a School of Magic.
The creation of the magic school gives powerful expression to the youth voice 
inherent in the service learning paradigm: ownership of the design in the context of meaningful service sparks active learning and results in a memorable science-inspired interactive educational performance bridging across its expansive urban and suburban set to connect the diverse populations of teens and the children served. The PIVOTS project is a new initiative by a team of Villanova University scientists, artists, engineers, and educators in collaboration with civic, corporate, and non-profit organizations. 
The focus is to determine the conditions (mentoring, support), materials, and background that will equip children to be directly involved in the research and artistic design necessary for creating and performing in a magic school for younger children and for conveying the excitement of self-directed learning in the sciences.
The ultimate objective is to nurture the cognitive capacities which are essential to the successful pursuit of careers in science: critical judgment, intellectual curiosity, creativity, determination, and discipline.
This is a three-week program sponsored by Villanova University in partnership with Science Resources and the Philadelphia Department of Recreation.
For more details visit: http://www.csc.villanova.edu/~magic/index.html