University Chapter News
- PDF / 554,896 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 576 x 777.6 pts Page_size
- 47 Downloads / 154 Views
Material World 95 Brings Science to School Children In 1994 members of the University of Rochester Chapter of the Materials Research Society (URCMRS) successfully organized The Material World: a science day hosting 52 minority members of the Girls Scouts of America from the sixth through the eighth grades.1 Our motivation was to introduce these studentstoscience before they may be prejudiced by myths stereotyping science as difficult, boring, and "geeky." The overall feedback from the girls was extremely positive. Organizing and presenting this event allowed URCMRS members to gauge which demonstrations were popular and which concepts were too advanced for the 11-13-year age group. Tapping from this knowledge, on May 13, 1995, we implemented our second Material World science day with help from the University of Rochester's Genesee Brooks Renewal Project and the Department of University and Community Affairs.2 We invited approximately 30 sixth-grade students from Rochester's inner city elementary schools. The goal of the science day was to offer the students a glimpse of how science contributes to and significantly transforms our lives and the world around us. We wanted to ignite a long-lasting, science-related interest in these children alongside offering them an opportunity to interact with scientists. The first Material World consisted of five science stations, of which two involved hands-on activities, followed by a panel discussion with local woman scientists and graduate students. Lasers, optics, and superconductivity formed the primary focus of three demonstrations. The students performed simple reactions to learn about polymers and crystals. After the day-long event we asked the participants to respond to six questions on an evaluation form: • Did you have fun? • What did you learn? • What did you like best? • What did you like least? • What one thing would you change if you could? • What other types of programs would you like us to offer? The statistics of 50 responses are illustrated in the figure. We were encouraged to know that over 90% had fun while learning science. The girls chose the laser demonstration as the favorite science station followed by the polymers, physics (optics and superconductivity), and crystals activities with 48%, 28%, 16%, and 12% of their votes, respectively. However
the statistics on least-liked demonstrations did not entirely match those for the mostliked. Sixty-four percent of the respondents least liked the physics station in contrast to only 6% disliking the crystals one. Overall, we clearly needed to alter the format and content of the physics demonstration. The students may have felt that some of the newly introduced concepts were too abstract. About 25% of the girls indicated that they wanted more hands-on participation; 16% wanted biology-related experiments. In addition, the audience barely participated in the panel discussion at the end of the day, which made that another activity to reorganize. On the whole, students and organizers enjoyed an exciting and unique exper
Data Loading...
