Science Outeach

Recently, I've been reading a lot about science outreach programs, especially towards socio-economically disadvantaged groups. I'm exposed to a lot of collegiate-level science education research through my job, which I don't mind at all. Every once in a while, I read articles on K-12 education as well because the articles often come in the same journals.

One article talked about science outreach and the benefits of higher education to visiting local K-12 classes. Grad students were trained on presenting hands-on science experiments to youth, then they would travel to different communities to give workshops to little kids. The workshops are often well-received by both teacher and students.

This brought back quite a few memories for me. While in elementary school, some university students came to visit us. They spoke about what they studied and why. I remember that I really liked the engineering guy. I went so far as to write him a letter asking more about college.

He wrote back explaining what it was like to be in college and what a great time he was having. That same week, I had "sex ed" where my teacher told me that women, during puberty, grew breasts. I pointed out that men also "grew breasts," of which I got snickers and disapproval from the teacher. I had to get out a book on hormonal regulation to show that men also grew breasts, but that they were simply anatomically different than men. I don't think that the teacher understood, but he conceded anyway. I was in desperate need for someone to talk with about science. The letter was a blessing in many ways.

I don't remember much more about the university student's reply, except one thing: the return note was written in all capital letters. Ever since that day, my handwriting is done in all capital letters, mainly due to the influence of that one student.

I suppose the visit had much more influence on me than I thought. I wonder if Madison has a program for visiting university students.