Bottles of strangely named chemicals, green slime and exploding gummy bears aren’t common sights in Maria Kerby’s Grade Nine and 10 science class at Regiopolis Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School in Kingston.
On Feb. 25, a group of Queen’s volunteers changed that.
The volunteers belong to the Let’s Talk Science partnership program. Let’s Talk Science is a national organization committed to improving science literacy through leadership, educational programs, research and advocacy. It was founded in 1993. The university-run partnership program is one of its initiatives. It connects university science students with students in kindergarten through Grade 12. Although explosions may be common on the menu of Let’s Talk Science activities, the program doesn’t neglect other realms of science either. Students can take part in a forensics demonstration, acting out a crime and learning how DNA is extracted in order to identify the culprit; or they can learn about the digestive system using a model comprised of pantyhose, a Ziploc bag, a plastic cup, a squished banana, a cracker and green food colouring.
Let’s Talk Science also does work outside of the classroom, judging science fairs, bringing students to Queen’s to tour different science facilities and conducting activities in public areas such as libraries.
With approximately 1,500 volunteers working with 22 Canadian universities and one community college, Let’s Talk Science partnership programs teach more than 65,000 youth from across the country each year.
The Queen’s program costs about $8,800 a year to run, which includes the co-ordinator’s salary, supplies and transportation costs. It’s funded by both Queen’s University and the Let’s Talk Science national organization, which receives funding from the Ontario Centres of Excellence, NSERC and Imperial Oil.
In its eighth year, the Queen’s chapter has 84 undergraduate and graduate student volunteers, and is looking to expand to up to 200 volunteers.
The volunteers share their expertise in science through hands-on, curriculum-based activities that encom a range of topics, including biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and engineering
The activities also serve a purpose beyond education.
Alexis Amaral, a Grade Nine student in Kerby’s class, said the volunteers make science enjoyable by emphasizing exploration over memorization.
“Last year my science class was just, like, copying page-long notes and answering questions. I perceived science as almost pointless,” Amaral said.
“I used to think scientists were boring. Very, very boring.”
Hands-on activities can clarify what could otherwise be confusing concepts, said Krista Plett, chemistry PhD ’08 and one of the Queen’s Let’s Talk Science partnership program co-ordinators.
“LTS tries to take concepts like electricity and show kids that this is something they can understand by putting it into an easier context. For them to visualize things like electrons, we act out a human circuit. We get whole piles of them to be electrons and they have to make a path around the classroom—that’s their circuit—and one of us is the battery and that’s where they get their energy to keep on walking,” Plett said.
“The teacher has to be the load; they give the teacher a high five as they . Then we show them what happens if there’s a break in the circuit: we put a road block in there for the kids and watch them stack up on it. And they get the idea of how circuits work.”
Jonathan Plett, biology PhD ’09 and the other Queen’s Let’s Talk Science co-ordinator said most kids relate science to either geeks or old people. Having youthful scientists come into classrooms helps change students’ perceptions. Plett said volunteers often start off an activity by introducing themselves and their research, which gives kids an idea of the myriad of career opportunities related to science.
To non-scientists, the field can be a kind of black box and can represent something scary and unknown, Jonathan Plett said.
“Let’s Talk Science shows the population that scientists are not totally insane—only partially—and helps to raise a generation that is more science-savvy.” Regiopolis science teacher Maria Kerby agreed.
“It’s good for the kids to see real people working in science, in areas like metallurgy that we don’t normally talk that much about,” she said. Kathleen Harding, a Grade Five and Six teacher at Centreville Public School, located 40 minutes outside of Kingston, said the program can help encourage further education in general.
“A lot of kids don’t think university is an option. The more university students they meet who seem ordinary make them realize they can reach that level too if they try,” she said.
In addition to introducing them to future options, Let’s Talk Science aims to demonstrate real-life, current scientific initiatives to students through projects such as International Polar Year, a cross-disciplinary two-year initiative to fund and conduct research on polar regions, which are important determinants in global climates and ecosystems.
This International Polar Year began last March and is the fourth to be held. In 1882 the International Meteorological Organization started the initiative and an IPY has been held every 50 years since, sponsored by the Meteorological Organization, the International Council for Science, or both.
Hannah Munro, ArtSci ’09, has amassed a wealth of knowledge about the polar region through her experiences in the Arctic and through her work on the International Polar Year Canada Youth Steering Committee. The committee’s goal is to raise interest among high school students about northern issues.
“This land is a part of Canada that we have no connection to down in the southern part of the country,” Munro said. “IPY is especially important as right now in Canada we are about to go into these sovereignty issues in regards to the Arctic.”
With the guidance and resources of Queen’s Let’s Talk Science, Munro is developing Arctic science demonstration kits she’ll present in schools around Kingston. Kits include PowerPoint presentations and hands-on activities such as a map students can colour in to represent the projected temperature changes—red for warming and blue for cooling.
Since 2006, youth in Grades Four to Six at select schools across Ontario have also become burgeoning fish scientists through “Bring Back the Salmon to Lake Ontario.” In February, tanks were set up at four schools around the Quinte conversation area.
Several times each day, students feed the fish, measure and record the water temperature, note and adjust the water level, and spend five minutes observing the fishes’ behaviour to make sure their Atlantic salmon are ready to be released in the spring.
Until the 20th century, Atlantic salmon were abundant in Lake Ontario, and represented a major food source and cultural item. Environmental changes, mainly from the effects of human activity in the area, resulted in the official loss of the local population in 1896.
In the 1990s, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources began research into the feasibility of restoring a self-sustaining population of salmon in the lake and initiated a full-scale recovery operation in 2006.
The 10- to 15-year project, funded mainly by the LCBO’s Natural Heritage Fund and Australian wine company Banrock Station Wines, involves fish production and stocking by the hundreds of thousands, habitat and water quality enhancement, research and public outreach.
The elementary school classrooms acting as mini-fisheries raise and monitor about 100 embryos, releasing them in the spring.
The Let’s Talk Science program collaborates on the project. As of summer 2007, there were 18 classes participating and three education centres in Ontario. Twenty other classes are expected to this fall.
This is the first year the Queen’s partnership program is involved with the Atlantic salmon restocking initiative.
“Queen’s volunteers are developing class lessons on the life cycle of salmon, basic fish biology, and habitat requirements,” said Todd French, a partnership program volunteer and PhD ’08 student in limnology, the study of inland waters.
Let’s Talk Science also lets students participate in hands-on activities such as measuring and comparing simple chemical properties of lake and ocean water and discussing their results in the context of the salmon life cycle.
“Maybe we’ll get a generation of kids that grows up saying, ‘I’m going to be careful not to spill gas into the lake when I fill up my boat, I’m going to think twice about driving my truck through a stream and I’m going to think twice about cutting down all the trees next to this stream on my property,” French said.
Even if students aren’t inspired to pursue further scientific education after their experiences with Let’s Talk Science, the program is still beneficial, said Sue McKee, national co-ordinator for the Let’s Talk Science partnership program.
“Let’s Talk Science is not out to make everybody into a scientist, but it’s important to help kids understand the importance of science.”
If you’re interested in volunteering with Queen’s Let’s Talk Science Partnership Program, e-mail Jonathan Plett at [email protected]. Fourth-year undergraduates or graduate students preferred.
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