"We’re in the Money!" (and… WOW this is a long newsletter!) UBC Let's Talk Science Partnership Program E-Newsletter vol. 8, issue 6 April 2005 ______________________________________________________ In this issue: - Volunteer of the Month - National Volunteer of the Year Award - Successful Fundraising! - GSS Saturday Science Day - Science Fair Judging (OR bring your partner class) - Science 101 Opportunity - Class Visits - Aboriginal Student Summer Camp (We’re ramping up, so read this if you’re interested!) - UBC TREK Learning Exchange Mini-School Project - Coordinator spot open at the University of Western Ontario (April 30 Deadline) - Science Joke of the Month ______________________________________________________ March Volunteer of the Month Is actually a 3-way tie!!! Congratulations to Derrick Randall, Lisa McDonnell and Kateriina Ilves. All 3 participated in the fabulously successful Mini-School initiative in conjunction with the Learning Exchange TREK program. Working with Grade 6 teachers Richard Griffin and Brian Breslin at Laura Secord Elementary in East Vancouver, Derrick, Lisa, Katriina put in 12 hours of in-class work and another 20 hours in prep time and consulting. The hard work and dedication of these three volunteers made mini-school a whopping success and have paved the way for its expansion next year! Congratulations folks! As always, our volunteer(s) of the month receive(s) a $20 gift card at the UBC Bookstore. Enjoy! ______________________________________________________ National Volunteer Award Nominees Every spring, each Let’s Talk Science site from across Canada can nominate up to 3 outstanding volunteers for the National Volunteer Award. We had the tough job of trying to narrow down just 3 exceptional volunteers from our phenomenal group. Congratulations to our 3 nominees: Derrick Randall, Lisa McDonnell and Rebecca Goulding Derrick has been involved with a standard partnership at Our Lady of Perpetual Help where he discussed ecosystems and niches in one visit and compared calorie content in foods in another. He has also judged in 5 science fairs (with a 6th coming up in May!) and was a major contributor to the Mini School Project outlined above. Lisa was also involved in the Mini School Project and has certainly gone above and beyond in her own partnerships. Lisa and partner Heather Coleman teamed up to deliver a hard hitting chemistry demo that involved a carbon snake for one of two visits to Britannia and they have both locked in for another huge project at Life Song which has them going in every two weeks to help students with science fair projects along with their first visit that showed the students how to extract DNA from bacteria! Lisa has also judged three science fairs (with a 4th coming up in May!) Rebecca was the February Volunteer of the Month. Not only was she instrumental to the Learning Exchange TREK Reading Week Project, but Rebecca also has a standard partnership at Windermere Secondary where her and partner Cath Dunn taught students about bacterial resistance and how germs spread with a bacterial plating demo and by smearing UV dye all across the classroom to see how invisible germs can spread! Rebecca has also volunteered to judge at science fairs. Good luck to our nominees – the National competition is really stiff (and they never seem to like paying for that extra flight from BC…) ______________________________________________________ Successful Fundraising After a long and hard effort, we’ve secured a great funding package for next year! While we’ve previously run the program on a total budget of about $5000, this upcoming year will see a huge increase! A big thank you needs to go out to Janet Teasdale from Brian Sullivan’s office (VP-Students) for a great deal of work on our behalf! We are not quite sure of the exact dollar figure yet, but it will certainly be in the neighbouhood of $35,000!!! This boost in funding will allow us to substantially improve and expand our program including more volunteer appreciation, an Invited Speaker Program, visits to schools outside of Vancouver, the purchase of some awesome supplies, expansion to UBC Okanagan, Aboriginal student outreach, and an LTS Alumni Network. We will also continue and build on our GSS (Saturday Science Day) and TREK Learning Exchange (reading Week and Mini-School) partnerships Also, if you have any ideas that you think LTS would/should/could do with the extra funding, please let us know – you folks are the backbone of this program. ______________________________________________________ GSS Saturday Science Day Alfredo, Karen, and Dave were joined by Nadia and Barbara for the first ever GSS Saturday Science Day on April 23rd from 10AM to 12PM. With a little bit of “children gone crazy after four days of sunshine” chaos, we locked them down and learned a whole lot about the Digestive System and Platonic Solids. It was a great event and it looks like we’ll be trying to run more like it in the future!!! *** If you have an idea for the next GSS Saturday Science Day (date to be determined) or if you want to help out at the event, let Dave know that you are interested in being involved! ______________________________________________________ Science Fairs – One more left and it’s the big one! *** THEY REALLY NEED FRENCH SPEAKING JUDGES ON MAY 17th! *** Also, physical and mathematical sciences are a touch short $20 Gift Certificates at the UBC Bookstore are still up for grabs (14 volunteers have already qualified for their certificate!) May 17 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. (Canada Wide Science Fair) May 18 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. (Canada Wide Science Fair) If you could answer the following for the CWSF, I will forward it onto the judging coordinator: 1. Which division(s) would you like to judge in? biotechnology, earth and environmental sciences, engineering and computing sciences, health sciences, life sciences, and physical and mathematical sciences. 2. What is your general area(s) of specialty? 3. What is your highest post-secondary degree? 4. Are you fluent in French? For those interested in bringing their partner classes - Bring your class to the Canada-Wide Science Fair! As you know, UBC is hosting the CWSF in May. Why not bring your class to see these amazing science fair projects? The last time the CWSF was in BC was in 1991 (and before that, 1977!), so this really is a unique opportunity for your students to see the best science fair projects in the country! To find out more about bringing your class to tour the fair (on May 20), check out: http://www.cwsf2005.ca/CWSF2005vJLL30/pdf/school%20tour%20poster.pdf or contact us! ______________________________________________________ Science 101 Opportunities Briefly, Science 101 is a multidisciplinary science course offered by the UBC Faculty of Science to residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Currently, they are recruiting volunteers, both UBC professors and graduate students, to lecture and/or tutor for the program. If you are interested in doing some work in the downtown eastside, this might be your calling, let Dave know if you are interested. ______________________________________________________ Aboriginal Student Summer Camp I’ve had interest from a few people concerning the camp this summer and it looks amazing so far! The camp will run from August 8th to 19th and we are still looking for as much help as we can get. Your commitment can range from a single morning or afternoon lecture to a whole two weeks of mentorship! The urban Aboriginal community continues to be one of the most under-supported groups in Vancouver, let’s see what we can do to offer some inspiration! Right now, I need all of those interested to get in touch with me as soon as possible so we can sit down for a meeting to discuss the types of activities we would like to develop and to really get a sense of what we’re trying to accomplish. Email Dave at lts@gss.ubc.ca! ______________________________________________________ UBC TREK Learning Exchange Mini-School will be clueing up this month, but will be even bigger next year! Derrick, Lisa, Katriina, and Dave have completed all four visits to two classrooms at Laura Secord Elementary in East Vancouver. The first day was all about the scientific method and experimental design with a demo on DNA extraction, day two had the kids collect water samples from their community and test them for different contaminants, and day three was the midway point for science fair projects involving student presentations and class Q&A – it was awesome! The final day involved teaching Mendelian Genetics with Gummi Bears (and Jelly Beans for the vegetarians in the crowd). The students are really motivated and the mini-school project will culminate in a super-fantastic science fair in late April! ______________________________________________________ Activity Reports Our Volunteers have been very busy the last little while! A lot of great activities have been conducted and many of them are available (or will be soon!) on the LTS website: http://www.gss.ubc.ca/LTS/activities.html Keep up the great work! And if you have done an activity recently and don’t see your name on this list, we haven’t received an Activity Evaluation from you! Please fill one in ASAP online (http://www.gss.ubc.ca/LTS/ve1.html) or email it to us at: lts@gss.ubc.ca The Activity Evaluations are really important. They allow us to recognize you for all the great work you do, keep us informed as to what everyone is up to and helps us get funding so we can keep the program running (and expanding!) successfully. Claire Hou and Obi Griffith explored the Genome Science Centre with their grade 11/12 class from Fraser Academy. Michelle Tang and Theresa Liao discussed pH and made a pH indicator from cabbage with their grade 3 class. Minnie Dai and Peter Wong did 3 activities with their grade 6 class looking at Vitamin C in food, acids and bases and starches and simple sugars in foods. Nadia Pietraville talked about brains with her grade 3 class and even brought in a cat brain to show the kids! Aviva Srubiski explored buoyancy and density with her grade 6/7 class using cups, food colouring and salt. Gina Rossi and Pamela O looked at flower anatomy with their grade 3 class. Beth Simpson and David Kent made electromagnetic motors with their grade 3/4 class. Sarah McCarthy and Stephanie Lee did 3 activities with Madrona School. They talked about careers in science, the nervous system and the circulatory system. Justin LeBlanc did an activity on microorganisms with his grade 6/7 class from Nootka Community Elementary. Andrew Muranyi compared a model human skeleton with a real cat skeleton with his grade 4 class. Erika Eliason, Barbara Gajda and Emily Coolidge used their senses to explore spring with kids at the UBC Bookstore. Lisa McDonnell and Heather Coleman did an activity with DNA and are helping students work on science fair projects at Life Song School. Sasha Wilson did 2 activities with her grade 1 class from Lord Tennyson Elementary. They compared different types of rocks, did a demo on how pumice floats and showed how erosion happens at the beach. Barbara Gajda used microscopes to examine the 5 kingdoms with her grade 7 class from Simon Fraser Elementary. ______________________________________________________ Coordinator spot open at UWO A note from current coordinator Amy Cooke Hi everyone, I would like to let you know that a position for coordinator of the UWO Let's Talk Science Partnership Program is now available. Please see the attached document for further information. The deadline for applications is April 30th 2005. The tasks listed may seen daunting at first but these duties are normally split between two coordinators. I will be stepping down as senior coordinator in May so you would be working with Susan throughout the year. This is a paid position and is extremely rewarding! If you are interested, I encourage you to submit an application. Let me know if you have any further questions. Hope to hear from you! Amy ______________________________________________________ Science Joke of the Month The 6th grade science teacher, Mrs. McNick, asked her class, "Which human body part increases to 10 times its size when stimulated?" No one answered until little Mary stood up, angry, and said, "You should not be asking 6th graders a question like that! I'm going to tell my parents, and they will go and tell the principal, who will then fire you!" With a sneer on her face, she then sat back down. Mrs. McNick ignored her and asked the question again, "Which body part increases to 10 times its size when stimulated?" Little Mary's mouth fell open; then she said to those around her, "Boy, is she gonna get in big trouble!" The teacher continued to ignore her and said to the class, "Anybody?" Finally, Billy stood up, looked around nervously, and said, "The body part that increases 10 times its size when stimulated is the pupil of the eye." Mrs. McNick said, "Very good, Billy," then turned to Mary and continued, "As for you, young lady, I have three things to say: (1) you have a dirty mind, (2) you didn't read your homework, and (3) one day you are going to be very, very disappointed." _____________________________________________________