MISSION SCIENCE: 2
USC is expanding a popular hands-on science program to include local elementary schools near the Health Sciences Campus.by Jon Nalick
By expanding a popular program that provides hands-on learning experiences to local elementary school students, USC is reaching out to schools in the Health Sciences Campus neighborhood.
The Mission Science program, which offers youngsters the opportunity to learn science, engineering and technology by participating in actual experiments and other projects, expanded its outreach in September 2000 by offering workshops at Griffin Avenue and Sheridan Street schools. USC's Neighborhood Outreach, a grant program funded by USC employee donations, provided a $26,500 grant to fund the program for 2000-2001.
Larry Lim, director of pre-college programs for the USC School of Engineering, says the grant pays stipends to elementary school teachers to oversee after-school workshops that encourage young students to play with science equipment, observe the results and discover the underlying scientific concepts.
"The idea is to stimulate the kids' curiosity and interest in science so that they will continue to take science classes through high school and college," he says. "That's important because the number of students choosing science and engineering as a career has steadily declined in the U.S. over the past few years. There's a tremendous shortage of people with these skills, so much so that many high technology companies here must recruit from other countries."
Typical workshops offer students a chance to work on electricity-related projects, such as building a working pinball machine model and running model cars, exploring magnetism through compass experiments, and performing kitchen chemistry experiments including making their own cotton candy machine to produce the fluffy confection.
"Most schools don't have the facilities or materials to do these things, so often this is the students' only opportunity to do hands-on experiments and take things apart and build things," Lim says.
Mission Science Coordinator Darin Gray says that the program is expected to reach about 50 students per week-although not necessarily the same students every workshop, so as many as 200 students are expected to participate in the first year.
Mission Science was instantly successful with children and their parents when it began in August 1996 with after-school and evening programs at an intergenerational community center in the USC University Park neighborhood. A Neighborhood Outreach grant currently supports Mission Science programs at Norwood Avenue, Vermont Avenue, 32nd Street, Weemes and Foshay Learning Center elementary schools.
Based on past experience at schools near the University Park Campus, Gray says the program will be a genuine hit with teachers, parents and students.
"Everybody wants to bring their kids to the workshops. There's a lot of excitement about what the next project is going to be-when the science guy walks in the kids actually break into applause. That's personally very fulfilling," he says.
Gray adds, "The best part for me is knowing that all these budding scientists are getting excited about science early on and that they will forever love science."
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