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   from the issue of March 6, 2008

     
 
Students help guide elementary science club

 BY KELLY HELM SMITH, SCHOOL OF NATURAL RESOURCES

What do medieval catapults, human arms, seesaws, spoons, and hammers all have in common? They're all examples of levers, and students at McPhee Elementary School used them to move objects, including each other, at a recent meeting of the after-school Science Club.


HANDS-ON SCIENCE - Learning about the effects of lever length are, from left, Simon Perkins, Torsten Mills, Dasha Plair, and Cassie...
 
HANDS-ON SCIENCE - Learning about the effects of lever length are, from left, Simon Perkins, Torsten Mills, Dasha Plair, and Cassie Humphress, at McPhee School's Science Club. The club is organized and staffed by students from UNL's School of Natural Resources. Photo by Kelly Helm/School of Natural Resources.

 
Eight of McPhee's 20 budding scientists spent a fast hour learning about leverage, torque, and which way to turn screws, with planned activities, supervision, and materials provided that day by six graduate students from UNL's School of Natural Resources.

"One of the most rewarding aspects is when the kids get to know your name," said John Quinn, SNR graduate student, one of the main organizers of the ongoing volunteer activity. Quinn, co-organizer Ariana Jones, and other students spend up to 100 hours a semester preparing and teaching lessons for the McPhee Science Club. A total of 20 students from SNR take turns volunteering at McPhee, located at Goodhue Boulevard and G Street.

McPhee Principal Bess Scott said the collaboration will improve her students' chances for success in later life. Science Club, with its hands-on lessons, helps build the language of higher-level thinking, and related skills such as inferring, hypothesizing and predicting. "That's the language of success, and that's powerful," Scott said.

The student volunteers are good role models, too. "Having college students who are excited about natural sciences, sharing their enthusiasm with children, who then get excited and enthused about natural sciences," is a plus, Scott said. "They don't look at them as full-grown adult teachers. They look at them as fellow students."

The connection with McPhee came about in part because Jim Brandle, professor of forestry and one of the advisers of the SNR Graduate Student Association, is married to Carolyn Brandle, one of the teachers at the school. He hears first-hand about some of the challenges faced by the school's dedicated staff, which serves many students and families who are working to overcome substantial obstacles, from security to well-being.

Eighty-eight percent of McPhee families live at or below the federal poverty level, based on eligibility for free and reduced school lunches, Scott said. The school has a 40 percent mobility rate - the change in students between the first and last day of the school year.

This is the GSA's third year working at McPhee Elementary. In the fall, the organization worked with McPhee's Community Learning Center to provide science education one day a week after school, and at least once during the semester for each grade level and each classroom.

Quinn said that although he will eventually complete his degree and move on, he and others are working to lay the groundwork so lessons and materials are clearly planned for other volunteers in the future.

The SNR students have covered a range of science-related topics with the McPhee students, including biodiversity, food, seeds and plant life cycles, the changing planet, and simple machines. Earthquake-simulating machines were also a hit. "We did a can crusher, which they thought was great," Brandle said. "Another time we brought in a whole bunch of different seeds and flowers."

Scott was optimistic that the seeds of curiosity planted through Science Club would bear fruit in student achievement. "We believe all our kids can and should graduate from high school and college," Scott said. "We tell them, 'It's hard work, but it's worth the hard work. It's not going to be easy. Smart isn't something you are. It's something you get through hard work.'"



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