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Science program connects kids with community members

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A long-running program designed to nurture elementary school students’ interest in science, engineering, technology and agriculture has a new name and a new plan.

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Representatives from the Science Discovery Squad volunteer program (formerly known as the Adopt-a-Scientist program) as well as staff and students gathered in the gym of Errol Road Public School on Wednesday to unveil the program’s new name.

But they also reflected on the program’s history, talked about its new scope and vision, while showing some incredibly cool science displays.

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For nearly 25 years, thousands of students from across the Lambton-Kent District and St. Clair Catholic District school boards have benefitted from the volunteer-based educational program, said science partnership technician Wendy Hooghiem, who has coordinated the program since its inception in 1995.

As part of the program, teams of volunteers – many retired engineers, scientists and technicians from Chemical Valley, as well as farmers from the region – have gone into elementary school classrooms in Sarnia-Lambton and Chatham-Kent to help students learn about concepts ranging from the basics of hydraulics and pneumatics to agricultural science and food production, to coding to the fine art of designing, creating and building a bridge.

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In 2017-2018 alone, there were over 190 requests from teachers across both boards seeking Science Discovery Squad classroom science demonstrations, Hooghiem said.

Using presentations that are hands-on, interactive, accessible and curriculum-linked, volunteers encourage students’ natural curiosity while inspiring a love for science, she said.

“Our mantra with everything what we do is that everything has to be hands-on,” Hooghiem said. “Because really, you can read about gears and pulleys, but if you have gears and pulleys to manipulate, you learn better that way. Whereas if you read it in a book or even watch it on YouTube, it’s not so compelling. It’s much more engaging doing it yourself.”

While the program has inspired numerous students over the past 24 years and has substantially grown – the program began with four volunteers and now has 44 – some tweaks were made to streamline the program, Hooghiem said.

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So, after consultation with teachers and volunteers, the program’s four main volunteer initiatives – the Science Division, the Agriculture Division, the Bridge Builders Division and the Coding Division –were streamlined into one, enhanced program with the ultimate goal of fulfilling the program’s mission statement: connecting community with classrooms.

“We just wanted to make one cohesive program that allowed for the fact that so much has changed over the last 24 years,” Hooghiem said. “We just felt it was a good time to restructure and now, with our push to get more volunteers, it’s a great time to renew things and make things better.”

Whether helping students fire projectiles with self-made trebuchets, assisting them in building popsicle-stick bridges or giving students and school board representatives rides on a homemade hovercraft, volunteers who attended the event at Errol Road School said they received as much from the program as they gave.

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Retired Dow Chemical engineer Marty Cogswell, who helps out with the bridge-building sessions, said that Science Discovery Squad presentations give elementary students a positive and practical glimpse into the world of engineering.

“It’s supposed to be an initial exposure to an engineering project,” he said. “So we go in, we talk to the kids about bridges, different styles of bridges and different materials that can be used. Then we present them with a few different options and what they do is select as a team what they want to build. They draw out a template and they have to build it, which requires different people doing different things.

“So it’s exposure to cooperation, planning, teamwork and construction,” Cogswell continued. “It’s an engineering exercise – typically in engineering, you work in teams, different people do different things and you pull everything together to complete your project and that is what this is all about. And it’s something that the kids look forward to and really, really enjoy.”

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Volunteer Cliff Pedersen, a chemical engineer who helps students learn about coding, said that the program provides numerous benefits for students.

“They’re learning some very important skills,” he said. “And there are some great jobs out there coding. If you learn how to make a computer do what you want to do to solve a problem, companies will pay you good money for that.”

The program also provides numerous benefits for its volunteers, Pedersen added.

“Working with the kids, being with the kids in the classroom, it really takes you back a lot of years,” he said, grinning. “But the kids these days, for the most part, they’re really good kids, they’re really sharp, they’re really attentive and they pick up on this stuff rather quickly. Hopefully we can inspire them to become scientists and engineers and help advance our standard of living.”

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Hooghiem, who said the program was looking for more volunteers with backgrounds in science, botany, agriculture and the trades, said watching volunteers work with students was one of the most rewarding parts of her job.

“The volunteers are absolutely wonderful. They’re great to work with and they’re just really passionate, really good role models,” she said.

“I find that the people who are drawn to the program are people who enjoy working with kids. The other thing that I’ve found is that all of these volunteers really love doing this stuff,” she added, smiling. “It’s toys for grown-up people. So it’s good for the kids and good for the volunteers.

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