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Upward Bound Math and Science

Exposes students to STEM and creative-industry careers. Students create a song or music video that most directors like to use as a recruiting tool, and the program also serves as a yearly team-building enrichment that increases engagement, attendance, enrollment and retention.

We support music-industry and STEM career exploration, outreach and recruiting, participant retention, and college and career readiness with the SEL books, keynotes, and the recording and music video program.

FAQs

Straight answers.

Audio engineering, acoustics, signal processing, and music technology — all of which are engineering careers students reach through music. For a UBMS cohort that is a career exploration route that connects their existing interest to a STEM pathway rather than asking them to choose between the two. It also surfaces majors students may not know exist: audio engineering, music technology, acoustical engineering. Most directors use our music recording program to create a music video they can use to increase enrollment and retention.
Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music interactive Workshop works for a summer residential kickoff, a Saturday academy opener, End of Year Gala Keynote, or a cohort event at the partner high school. Programs also book it as a recruitment event at target schools, since it draws students who would not attend an information session.
Music is structurally mathematical — ratio, interval, pattern, subdivision. Programs use the material both for its social-emotional content and because it gives students an applied context for pattern reasoning that does not feel like more coursework. The research on music and learning covers exactly this overlap, and it is worth reviewing before deciding whether the fit is real for your students.
Upward Bound's outcomes measures are postsecondary enrollment and completion, and the non-cognitive factors are where programs have the least leverage and the most attrition. Persistence, help-seeking, and managing setbacks are what our material addresses. It is one component. Enrollment and retention respond to advising, financial aid, and academic preparation as much as anything else, and we are not going to claim a book moves your APR numbers.
It addresses the behaviors that drive persistence: managing frustration and sustaining practice through difficult coursework. Staff asking how to improve retention in students in STEM fields are usually looking at attrition that happens in the first two years.

We do not claim measured effects on STEM retention. If you need efficacy data for a reporting requirement, ask us what we have and evaluate it honestly.
Music recording and video production programming is available, and it is a direct STEM-to-career bridge: acoustics, signal processing, and digital audio are engineering content students often reach through music first.
The core teen edition is the same. What differs is how programs use it — UBMS sites typically lean on the pattern and structure material more heavily and pair it with the production programming.
Directly, and this is the clearest STEAM bridge we offer. Recording is applied physics and applied math: frequency and wavelength, signal processing, gain structure, digital sampling rates, and the arithmetic of tempo and subdivision. Scholars who arrive interested in music leave having done engineering work. Programs looking for music and learning research to justify the connection should ask us for the reference list.
Melody and rhythm aid recall, which is why the method uses song structure to carry concepts. Applied to a STEM context, scholars have used it for sequences and formulas as well as for soft skills. It is a memory aid, not a substitute for instruction.
No. We send our own staff to run the programming. We do not train your staff to run it. Recording and production is a skill set, not a procedure. Trying to hand it off in a few hours would be like teaching a doctor to perform surgery in an afternoon — you would get a session that technically happened and a result nobody wants to hear. Scholars often want to learn the technical side themselves, which is the point — that is career exploration. Staff running it is a different question.
No. We are supplemental. We do not replace your SEL curriculum, your trauma-informed practice, or any program you already have in place. If you run a core SEL program, keep it — ours adds a music-based component alongside it. If you have trauma-informed protocols, training, and referral pathways, those stay in force exactly as they are. Nothing in our material substitutes for them, and our facilitators are not a substitute for your clinical, counseling, or behavioral staff. Your STEM curriculum and research components are untouched. This adds alongside them.
45 minutes to 2 hours. Most schools book a class period or 90 minutes. The 90-minute format is the one we recommend when you have the room. 45 minutes works for a single class period or a tight bell schedule, and 2 hours suits a half-day event, a grade-level rally, or a Black History Month or Red Ribbon Week program. Tell us your bell schedule and we will fit the session to it rather than asking you to build around us.

How this program runs

Same SIWM work. Built for Upward Bound Math and Science.

Start with the social emotional learning books. Add a keynote. Bring a recording program when you want participants writing and performing — we produce the song and video.

Aligned with UBMS goals for strengthening math and science skills and preparing students for STEM degrees and careers. Integrates sound waves, frequency, music technology, digital media, creative problem-solving, communication, and teamwork. CASEL 5 SEL competencies; National Core Arts (Music/Media Arts); Common Core ELA writing & public speaking; CTE Arts/A-V & career-readiness pathways; STEM/STEAM.

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The Psychological Effects of Music