An important challenge in urban science education is finding ways to engage all students in the learning of science. However, research in this area has consistently shown that around middle school student engagement in science wanes. Using critical ethnographic methods this study reveals how students cultivate a sense of ownership in an informal science video project. Student ownership of what they they learn plays an important role in how they engage in the learning environment. In this study ownership is characterized by five themes, and the notion of student ownership science is challenged as an outcome. Ownership is defined as a complex, multifaceted process that captures the relationships that students build between themselves, as youth and as learners, with science as the subject they aspire to participate in and with the context in which that participation takes place.